I'm back, but I still haven't found what I am looking for.

I've had a funny half year, after losing a pet and then some big changes for my family, somehow I really lost my way and track of time. The last few weeks have been focused on making some organisational changes in my home; moving furniture, repurposing storage, failed DIY and generally trying new arrangements. As well as repeatedly thumping my computer which is being REALLY slow.

Unlocking brain power

Now I am watching a film called Limitless in which a man takes a new drug that brings him absolute clarity, his deductive reasoning increases more than tenfold. I've yet to see the part where he finds the drawbacks but he is able to connect ideas, memories and patterns from his life to create new solutions, and a lot of money, and it is making me think.

I know I am smart, I was always smart, but I've been a bit unlucky having worked for companies that either went broke or had some other issues, so I have never really had a chance to prove myself. I've also been somewhat let down by my health which is a nuisance and doesn't really help.

I am very aware of things around me, like the guy in the film. I'm good at putting ideas together and creating new ideas from them but I am not so good at how to connect to the right people to put them into practice. I've been burned a few times; shared an idea, heard nothing back then one day the idea is on the shelves. Twenty years ago at university I wrote an essay predicting that the music business would come to see the live experience as its primary income stream, and now with the rise of filesharing my theory is proving quite accurate. There are even businesses based on people sharing the experience.

I know that in the right situations I am quick thinking, able to spot trends, aware of potential pitfalls and capable of asking all the questions that get the information needed at that moment. A little bit like the man in the film who's brain starts working at full capacity.

But somehow I can't get that on a CV and prove to a decent employer that I am the person they need.

I know that 'the right situations' are ones where I am stimulated, required to stretch my mind, a little under pressure and where I have some incentive to solve the issues at hand. I.e. situations that are not a lot like most of the paid employment I have had.

It is partly bad luck that I found jobs in the wrong places, partly a distinct lack of self belief and the confidence required to get my foot through the right door (I am most definitely an introvert), and partly a serious distaste for the mundane and repetitive. Not that I can't knuckle down, I've cleared rooms piled high with junk and turned them into orderly and accurately mapped file storage spaces, but when you keep being asked to do those tasks but have the brain power for so much more it gets to be entirely disheartening.

I've always had the sense that the solution for me is just a tiny bit beyond my reach, that if I could turn a little quicker that idea I glimpsed would come into full focus or that if I could just connect couple of dots I would have all the answers.

So the little pills the man in the film takes to make all that happen sound very appealing. Except now the film is over, I really don't want to deal with some of those consequences.

It's the little things

I like this

It is a part of why I like to pass on information I find, you never know how sharing something might make a difference to someone's life and all it costs is a little time. The rewards could be lifelong.

The future of the world

I read this fascinating article on The Guardian website.




Food for thought for sure but it invites as many questions as solutions at this stage.

• First up is the thought 'how many times has something similar been said in the last century or more?'
• I can imagine that there have been many great thinkers from Adam Smith to Jeremy Bentham and even Malthus who have posited that profit can not be the only aim of business in a civilised world.
• Then, is there any real way to get all the world's business and political leaders around the same table to make it happen?
• In a week when the London Underground proposed later running tubes only to be shouted down by the unions, people whose livelihoods depend on the same system in the same town, can the diverse interests and fields of all business and communities really be brought under one umbrella set of regulations?
• Can we ever reach a point where all the experts agree?
• Even today there are people in power and experts who can't agree on the realities of climate change. Some are absolutely convinced it is not happening, others believe mankind has had a huge and continuing impact.
• Can we be sure that any ideology proposed by any one nation or company is not imposing something entirely alien on others?
• The simple idea of consuming horsemeat has this week shown divisions in Europe that are cultural and historical and that neither side would view as being wrong or negotiable.

It's a noble idea to make the world run on more ethical terms and one I wish more people subscribed to, but is it realistic to expect so many diverse interests to be able to come together and make it work?

How would you change the world for the better?

It drives me crazy

Are there everyday niggles that make you disproportionately angry?

The on that gets me yelling at inanimate objects on a fairly regular basis is a box of eighty matches that has a strike strip that gives out after about forty matches. My guess is that they are designed for eighty strikes but since no match ever lights first time those eighty strikes are up before the box is half empty.




I remember many a day as a kid where the loud and very rude words emanating from the kitchen or bathroom that were a clear indication that Dad was trying to do some plumbing!

What drives you to distraction that really could be walked away from in peace?

Hamlet

The other day my mum happened to ask me "of all the Hamlets you've seen, which did you like best?"

Not an easy one to answer on the fly. So I thought I would try to answer it here instead. 

In roughly chronological order (I have had to look up dates as regrettably I've not got programmes for most of the performances):

Iain Glen in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Filmed in 1990 but I don't think I saw it until 1998. Not a full Hamlet as it is a play based on the two minor characters that are friends of Hamlet but end up betraying and then being betrayed by Hamlet. Although a comedy, Iain Glen plays Hamlet straight but with a lightness that lets the intelligence of the character shine through. It has become my all time favourite film and I recommend it every time I am asked about films. This is the first time I really felt I had to get to know the Dane better. 
Toby Stephens 2004, directed by Michael Boyd at the old theatre in Stratford Upon Avon (it's been rebuilt now and I really want to go). The ghost was quite extraordinary, being a broken down, anguished, hobbling man painted white with tremendous sound effects accompanying his every move. Toby Stephens is often cast as a man full of contempt borne of an instinctive sense of superiority. This Hamlet was all that, with an anger at the injustices he faces that was full of intensity. 
Ben Whishaw 2004, directed by Trevor Nunn at The Old Vic, London. This was a fairly extraordinary production in that Hamlet had an innocence and despair that I think other performances have not majored on, preferring to cast him as scheming and in some cases gleeful about his plotting. It was also the first I saw that was in a modern setting, though was not as sparely staged as the Toby Stephens version. At the time I thought it was marvellous but it has since been overshadowed by other performances.
Ed Stoppard in 2005, at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford. I was particularly keen to see this version, Ed being the son of Tom who wrote Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. It also featured Anita Dobson who is so far my favourite Gertrude, played as a belligerent, put upon wife who is sick of being told 'Gertrude, do not drink.' It shone a different light on her, a wife who is a chattel, who is not complicit in Claudius' machinations.
Kenneth Branagh on film filmed in 1996 but I think I saw it in 2007. I think this is a tour de force. It is the full four hours but really doesn't feel like it. The performances are all top notch from Derek Jacobi as Claudius to Billy Crystal as the gravedigger. The setting and costume is perfect and Branagh makes a dashing Prince in his black garb. I definitely recommend this to anyone who is unable to go to the theatre. Branagh, as with his other adaptations, has found a way to make the language sing, and there is not a single phrase that is difficult or awkward.
David Tennant (twice) in 2008, directed by Gregory Doran at the Courtyard Theatre, Stratford Upon Avon and the dvd of the production. This was a very funny production, in modern dress, with some stand out moments such as a slightly drugged Hamlet bound to an office chair and rolled around the stage before his banishment. Oliver Ford Davies as Polonius made the old man forgetful and confused, his speech to Laertes about how to conduct himself fragmenting as his mind wanders. Patrick Stewart was also a memorable Claudius. The DVD is not filmed on the stage but in rooms of a stately home and works well.
Jude Law in 2009, directed by at the Wyndhams Theatre, London as part of the Donmar West End series that included: Derek Jacobi as Malvolio and the brilliant Ron Cook as Toby Belch in Twelfth Night, Judi Dench in Madame de Sade (which I didn't get to see), Kenneth Branagh as Ivanov which was a sublime piece of theatre. Unfortunately this Hamlet was very forgettable and I remember little except Law sitting in front of a wall for one of the soliloquys.
Michael Sheen in 2012, directed by Ian Rickson at The Young Vic in London. This was a very different staging, set in a 20th century asylum. The Young Vic is a brilliant space for a claustrophobic performance, and at times the whole room was plunged into pitch darkness. The clever use of a greatcoat to signify the ghost/Hamlet's madness and the stage being wholly removed to present a pit into which every one ends up dying were infinitely more memorable than most of the actors though. Sheen and Benedict Wong as Laertes being the stand outs. Claudius was quite oily and slick in public, the contrast to his private moments being very effective. I also took part in the pre show walk, wherein we entered the theatre from the back and walked through rooms set up as rooms of the asylum; the library, gym and others, peopled with members of the cast. This was rather subtle though and I am sure many people on the walk missed almost everything.
In the Michael Almereyda film of 2000, Ethan Hawke is a film student, allowing him to replay soliloquys to himself on his laptop. The setting is New York and many of the locations are ultra modern apartments. Claudius is head of Denmark Corp and the ghost is seen in CCTV footage. It is a much abbreviated text but is very stylish and innovative. Ethan Hawke is moody and petulant, perhaps befitting of a rich kid who wants for nothing in the modern world.


I haven't seen the Kevin Kline film version. I really want to see the Laurence Olivier and Richard Burton films. I am very envious of my dad who saw Peter O'Toole on stage in the 60s. I need to watch the BBC version from the early 80s as I am intrigued to see Patrick Stewart as a Claudius who is younger than Derek Jacobi as Hamlet. I would love to see it on stage at The Globe in London and I think Tobias Menzies would be fantastic in the role (he has done it in the past apparently).

All in all, I would absolutely recommend the Kenneth Branagh film to anyone, whether new to Shakespeare or a lifelong fan. Of the stage plays, it would be a toss up between Toby Stephens and David Tennant. I might go for the latter as so many of the other performances were so good, in particular Oliver Ford Davies.

Have you seen Hamlet? What are your memories of any you have seen?

Health

It seems at the moment that I spend half my time in a hospital of some sort or another. Visiting relatives, having appointments of my own and having a pet as an in patient at the vet.
In all the human hospitals I've been overwhelmed by the temperature! I understand that convalescing patients need to be warm but the corridors don't need to be set to 'roast' surely? I would think that having public, non-clinical areas so warm might actually harbour bugs rather then be helpful and it must cost a fortune to heat hallways that are mainly used by visitors who have just come in from the cold so are all wrapped up anyway!
And the NHS needs to save more money than I can count!
I wonder if anyone who has the power to make decisions ever actually walks down these corridors?

Making me happy

I just heard some wonderful news.
Black Sabbath are getting back together for a new album and world tour.
When I was a very small girl, my parents had a couple of Black Sabbath tracks on some compilation albums.
I loved Paranoid, at 8, somehow I got it, although my schoolmates were baffled. (Vol 4, arguably the last of the truly great, truly perfect Sabbath albums, was released in the month I was born)
Growing up to be a teenager I got to hear more of their work, whole albums of sublime music.
My only sadness was that I would never see them live as Ozzy had been expelled for his antics, despite the rest of the band being similarly disposed.
I did get to see Ozzy several times, and loved every single second he was on stage.
Then one day in the late 1990s came the announcement - they were going to play together again.
I can remember going up to Birmingham to see them as soon as possible and bouncing, literally bouncing a foot or more in the air, in the queue with excitement. A few months later I saw them at The Astoria in London and got soaked when Ozzy chucked a bucket of water over the front few lines of the crowd. Then I managed to wangle a trip to Phoenix to see them play on New Year's Eve. I remember very clearly they stopped at midnight, opened the roof of the stadium to reveal a full moon and then they blasted into their encore.

And now they are coming back again - possibly the worst kept secret of the year - and I am delighted. I just wish the tickets went on sale today as I can't wait all week to book!

Long live Black Sabbath   \m/