Books, Movies and Random Thoughts

The official website for Galleria Ferrari was notably lacking in information on how to get there by public transport. We eventually worked it out by means of other people’s blogs, plus some minimal (though better than nothing!) instructions from the Florence tourist office. So, since other people’s blogs helped us, I thought I’d add to the internet-based information.

Step one was to get from Florence to Modena – fortunately we got a direct train, rather than having to change.

From the Modena train station we got a Number 7 bus to the main bus station. Actually it would only have been a 10 minute walk, but since we didn’t have a map (there was no tourist information at the train station – or, indeed, at the bus station) we thought the bus would be safer.

Finding a bus to Maranello was quite easy, as the bus station had a central ticket office, numbered bays and an indicator board, though it was about 40 minutes before the next bus was due. On the (very good!) advice of the ticket seller, we bought four tickets – two to get us out there, and two to get us back. What we didn’t think to do was ask if there was a timetable so we would know when the busses back were.

The bus trip took about 30 minutes, and the bus driver shouted out “Ferrari” at the appropriate stop. The stop was outside a Ferrari shop, and after that was the restaurant Enzo used to eat at, and then another shop (this was the actual, official one). The factory was across the road, but factory tours are only available to owners. To get to the Gallery we walked down the road between the restauarant and the official shop, around to the left, and then around to the right.

The actual gallery was a bit smaller than we had expected, but there was a good collection of F1 cars (there were important early ones, plus a range of relatively recent ones – three of Schumacher’s, plus one of Prost’s, one of Mansell’s and one of Berger’s), as well as road cars (I particularly liked the new 599 in a stunning shade of metallic red, slightly deeper than the traditional Ferrari colour) and an exhibition of sports prototypes. In total, Michael took 350 photographs at the gallery, and of cars in the carpark.

We had hoped to have lunch in the restaurant across the road from the factory, but it was full (something we should have anticipated), and this was the point at which we realised our error in not asking about bus times, as the bus stop didn’t have any timetable on it at all. But by an incredible piece of good luck, while we were standing there debating whether it would be better to walk into the centre of Maranello or just wait for a bus, one arrived!

We had considered seeing a bit of Modena, but in the end we just got the train back to Florence. Rather than wandering around looking for somewhere to have dinner, when we got back to the hotel we asked them to recommend a nice restaurant. The place we went – Giovanni’s – was expensive, but far and away the best food we had eaten. Michael had the suckling pig, which he said was the best he had ever had, and I had the tuna, which was also cooked superbly.

Once we had actually found the bus station in Florence (after walking right past the entrance at least three times), getting the bus to Siena was quite problem free. It seemed that almost everyone on the bus was a tourist rather than a local!

Siena itself was just beautiful. I loved the gold colour of the buildings. We spent the morning walking around, had lunch on Piazza del Campo (where the horse race is run) and then went into the Museo Civico in the Palazzo Communale. There was an amazing range of decoration within the rooms, and the view from the top floor (even though we didn’t actually go up the bell tower) was wonderful.

In the afternoon we did a walking tour, with a really good tour guide who not only told us about historic Siena, but also about the more modern aspects – especially the full details of how the horse race is organised: it is entirely a competition between the districts of the city, once the horses for the race have been selected they are actually assigned to the districts by lot, but each district organises its own jockey. I said I didn’t see how people standing in the middle of the piazza would be able to see the race at all, and she made us all laugh when she replied “If you are Sienese, you feel it.”

When the tour was finished, we went into the Duomo – which has the most amazing floors – and then up into the Museo Dell’Opera museum, which is in what would have been the nave of the never-finished extension to the Duomo. From the top, we got another magnificent view of Siena.

Getting a bus back to Florence was slightly less straightforward than the morning, but only because the bus was delayed, and there were no indicator boards or anything to tell us.

We caught the train from Rome to Florence. Our hotel in Florence is in a 15th century building and the rooms are lovely. It is also conveniently located close to the station, and walking distance from the main part of Florence. The only downside is that our room overlooks the road, so is a bit noisy.

After checking in, we walked to the Doumo. The exterior is incredibly ornate, but the interior, while vast, is relatively plain. Though from the normal access areas, you can’t properly see the painting on the inside of the dome. After that, we went to the baptistry, which had a magnificent ceiling, and then the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo where we saw Michelangelo’s Pieta and some of the original door panels for the baptistry (the baptistry itself now has replica panels on the door). The Museo was surprisingly uncrowded.

Finally, we climbed the 463 steps up the dome. This meant that we got to actually see the ceiling painting, and also the magnificent view of Florence from the top. Fortunately, the weather is still clear and sunny.

After this, we wandered around the streets of Florence for a bit, and ended up in the Piazza della Signoria, where we admired both the fountain and the sculptures in the Loggia della Signoria. I particularly liked the Perseo. We also went into the Palazzo Vecchio – like the Museo, surprisingly uncrowded.

The hotel had been unable to get us tickets to the Uffizi, so on Thursday morning we wandered past to see how bad the queue was (very!) and then went to the Museo del Bargello where we saw yet more magnficent sculpture – and which again (compared to the queue for the Uffizi) was relatively uncrowded. I loved seeing the original Winged Mercury. Donatello’s bronze David was undergoing restoration – it will take approximately two years – but they are actually doing it in the museum, so you can see it and learn about the process, which is partly good old-fashioned manual cleaning, but which also uses high-tech laser work.

The hotel had booked us tickets for the Galleria dell’Accademia at 1:00, which we were very pleased about when we saw the queue was around the corner. Seeing Michelangelo’s David was incredible – from all the pictures, plus the copy outside the Palazzo Vecchio, I thought I knew what to expect, but walking into the gallery and seeing it at the far end of the room I realised that I actually had no idea just how impressive it really is. This was definitely the high point of the Accademia – but it is still surprising how many people seem to focus entirely on that (and the Uffizi) and yet don’t bother with the other museums. And of course, there were many, many museums we didn’t get to at all, so I can only imagine what we might have missed.

We still have two more days in Florence, but we had planned to have a day trip to either Siena (for me) or to Maranello (for Michael to see Galleria Ferrari). After discussing various options, we decided that while we could try to brave the queues for the Uffizi we were actually feeling a bit galleried-out – and there is sure to be another trip to Florence some day, when we will book the Uffizi well in advance – so instead we would have two day trips rather than one. So we are going to Siena on Friday and Maranello on Saturday.

We arrived in Rome on Sunday evening. The place we are staying – Eva’s Rooms, recommended by Barbara – is about two minutes walk from the foot of the Spanish Steps. The bed is a bit hard, but there is plenty of space and the location is great. The breakfast is a minimal – coffee/tea/chocolate and glazed croissants – but it is served in the room which is very convenient.

Monday dawned with a bright blue sky, and remained clear and hot all day – quite a change from the weather in Ireland. We had planned to spend the morning at the Vatican Museums, but after we saw the length of the queue, which looked like it would involve several hours standing in line, we changed our plans and went to St Peter’s Basilica first. There was something of a queue there as well, but nowhere near as long, and it was in the decorative piazza, rather than running along the outside walls of the Vatican, with nothing to look at but traffic. The interior of St Peter’s was awe-inspiringly vast, and full of breathtaking artwork, but all felt a bit impersonal. Though maybe this was partly the effect of a million tourists (including us) taking photos.

For the afternoon, we switched from Christian to Imperial Rome, and went over to the Colosseum. It was certainly bigger than the amphitheatres I saw a few years ago in Nimes and Arles! From the Colosseum we went to the Palatine. We joined on to a tour group with a quite engaging guide, but partway through the tour he was approached by a member of the police (apparently, though we didn’t see him show any identification) and was told he had to stop as he wasn’t authorised for the area. Fortunately the Rome guidebook that Brendan had loaned me had a detailed map and enough information that we weren’t completely at a loss.

From the Palatine we walked down through the Forum, again making extensive use of the guidebook. I generally prefer taking photos of ruins with as few people as possible in them (don’t always succeed) but in this instance I actually felt that having crowds in the photos worked, as it gave a sense of bustle and activity, and being the centre of Roman life. On the way back to the hotel we walked past the Trevi Fountain. It was certainly impressive (as were the sheer number of tourists looking at it), but I thnk I actually prefer some of the smaller fountains.

The plan for Tuesday had been to see the Capitoline Museums, then the Pantheon, and then cross over the Tiber and wander around the Trastevere area. But a minor wrong turn meant we found ourselves passing by the Pantheon, so of course it made sense to change the order of things. This was actually very good, as it was a lot less crowded in the Pantheon at 9:00 than it would have been later in the day. Since we were in the area, we then went to the Santa Maria Sopra Minerva (nothing much on the outside – except for the unusual Bernini elephant statue – but spectacular Gothic interior) and the Gesù (first Jesuit church in Rome).

After this we went to the two Capitoline Museums, and there were so many things to photograph that the camera battery ran out! So when we left, we went back to the hotel to pick up the other camera, and then decided to have a lateish lunch at Babbington’s Tea Rooms (in the Piazza del Spagna) – it was quite nice, but horrifically expensive. We decided it was too much of a hike to go from there to the Trastevere area, so instead we went to Castel Sant’Angelo, where we also got to enjoy the views from the top terrace.

The flight from Australia to Ireland was remarkably incident-free, compared to my last overseas flight to Canada. The only problem was an extended delay in Frankfurt (not the world’s most interesting airport) due to my flight to Dublin being held up. Michael met me at Dublin airport (he had arrived from Tampere the day before) and we drove to Celbridge where we were staying. By the time we got there, and I had showered, changed, etc, it was too late to do anything much that day. We did go to a bit of a family get-together that evening, but left at about 9pm because I really needed to get some sleep.

The next day we went to Kildare, and saw the 13th century St Brigit’s Cathedral. The attendant inside was very nice, and pointed out a few interesting things (such as the fertility symbol on the underside of the Bishop’s tomb). He also let Michael ring the Cathedral bell. Next to the Cathedral is a round tower – the second highest in Ireland (at 32.9m). Apparently it is also the only one people are allowed to climb. We got to the top by means of a series of ladders, and at times it was a bit cramped and awkward getting off the ladders and onto the landings. The top was a bit wet and slimy (the pigeons had been there!) but the views were great. I took some photos of the Cathedral and the surrounding landscape.

After that, we went to the Irish National Stud, which is just outside Kildare. We did a tour, where the guide showed us all the main areas, and explained the process. Some of this I was already familiar with from the Dick Francis book Banker, but some was new to me. For example, they have to take a photo every time a stallion covers a mare, to prove that it wasn’t done by artificial insemination, which is banned to prevent the gene pool being reduced (because if AI was used, each top stallion could inseminate far, far more mares than is currently the case).

He also showed us the stalls for each of the stallions, and told us about them. After the tour finished, we walked past the stallions’ paddocks to see them. Right at the end of the row was Vintage Crop, who won the 1993 Melbourne Cup. We were a bit puzzled that the guide hadn’t mentioned him, and that we hadn’t seen his stall. Then in the gift shop, we saw Vintage Crop t-shirts, but again he wasn’t mentioned in the list of "Stallions 1946 to Present Day". Finally all was explained when I saw a picture of him in the guidebook – he is on retirement at the stud, but not working there as he is a gelding! The stud also has Japanese Gardens, created about 100 years ago. They were nice, though we probably wouldn’t have made a special trip out to see them.

On Saturday morning, we had a brief wander around the ruins of 13th century Maynooth Castle. However, the main business of the day was our primary reason for being in Ireland – my cousin Jessica’s wedding.

The day had dawned grey and drizzly, and there was no suggestion that it might clear before the wedding, which was at 1:30. But then at about 1:00 blue sky started to appear, and there was even some sun. And this lasted right through to the end of the ceremony, allowing for photos, and milling around outside afterwards. The ceremony was in the Lady Chapel Church, near Celbridge. The flowers were lovely (all done by Richard’s mother) and Jess looked beautiful. As well as the bridesmaid and best man, there was a flower girl and page boy, who both looked very cute (if rather nervous as they preceeded everyone up the aisle).

The reception was at Kilkea Castle, Ireland’s oldest continuously inhabited castle (built in the 12th century, and completely restored in the 19th century). The decor was atmospheric, the food was great, the best man did a good job of MCing, and the speeches were the right balance of humour and sentiment – and none of them was too long!

I saw The Art of War back in June, so it has only taken me two months to get around to blogging it!

I was a bit concerned when I heard that it ran for three hours. And when I got the program and saw that most of the actors played multiple parts, and there were sevaral different plot threads and a Chorus, I thought I was in for another pretentious evening, with underwhelming storylines, and characters I didn’t care about. I could not have been more wrong!

The opening (Chorus reciting from Sun Tzu) was rather stagey and pretentious. But once the main part started, I got caught up in it: even though there were multiple completely separate stories (on one hand, the soldier, the journalist and the Iraq war, and on the other, the Australian company trying to break into the Chinese market – with both forming the backdrops to various tales of love and/or obsession) I found them all interesting and fulfilling rather than short and superficial. And I did like the conceit of applying The Art of War to actual war, to corporate infighting, and to personal relationships. Also, I became really interested in what was happening to the characters, and I genuinely cared about them. As the play progressed, I even came to enjoy the Chorus (particularly in moments such as the one in which they stopped reciting to argue amongst themselves about different translations of the text).

The play was specifically written for the STC Actors Company – the playwright claimed he had only seen a photo of them, but he must surely have also been given some background on their performance styles. As usual, amongst the younger members of the cast, the women (Hayley McElhinney and Amber McMahon) were good and the men a little less so. Of course, Pamela Rabe filled the stage with personality – the way her part was written (tough, idealistic, vulnerable, and uncompromising) was one of the strongest signs that the playwright must have had more to go on than just a photograph. As expected, John Gaden turned in solid performances for his roles, as did Peter Carroll. But for me, the real surprise was Colin Moody. I have seem him in other Actors Company productions, and have generally found him quite forgettable – not bad, but not outstandingly good either. But I thought he was fantastic as the career soldier who knows exactly what is going on – and what will happen – and is simply trying to make the best of a bad situation (both professionally and – with less confidence and competence – in his personal life).

This was the first play in ages that I came out of and thought that I would really love to see it again. (I didn’t, unfortunately. But I wish I could have.)

I first read Becoming Jane Austen after Penny Gay recommended it during a talk to the Jane Austen Society of Australia. I found it an engaging biography, particularly in the picture it painted of how Jane the young scribbler evolved into Austen the professional author. (One of the points Penny had made was that Spence looks at how Austen began referring to her writing as her “work”). I also enjoyed thinking about the idea that Elizabeth and Darcy could have been inspired by Tom Lefroy and Jane herself – but with Tom’s traits going into Elizabeth, and Jane’s into Darcy. On reflection, I decided I wasn’t totally convinced, but it was still a fascinating line of thought.

I also found his suggestion that Jane and Tom may have met again in London interesting – the evidence he presented was certainly suggestive, if not absolutely convincing.

However, I was emphatically not convinced by the suggestion that every one of Austen’s novels references a Tom Jones character, and this is a link to Tom Lefroy. After all, Tom Jones has a large cast of characters, and there is such a thing as coincidence. I was left with a sneaking suspicion that if one tried, one could also find links to character names from – to randomly select another long 18th century novel – Tristram Shandy. And towards the end of the book, I started to be bothered by the fact that Spence presented assupmtions and suppositions, but using language that implied they were proven fact.

In spite of this, though, I enjoyed the book enough to put in a Christmas present request for it, and I re-read it with pleasure.

The film of Becoming Jane, though …

Well, I suppose it was pleasant enough, and the actors did a nice job, but it really didn’t have anything much to do with the book. At times I felt that Spence was stretching in his assumptions, but at least he did start from – and remain basically consistent with – known facts. The film just made stuff up. It took a few character types from Jane Austen’s novels, trimmed off most of the things that makes them good and interesting, and presented a fairly bland and conventional romance (except without a happy ending). And the storyline, which had started off with a vague connection to (one chapter of) Spence’s book, suddenly took a radical divergence into complete fiction. I tend to think they should have either stuck vaguely with the known facts – or reasonable extrapolations from them – or else done a film in the style of Shakespeare in Love, which is clearly unrealistic. Or – if they really found Jane Austen’s life so boring that it had to be spiced up with an elopement – maybe they should have considered not making the film at all?

But I am glad I got Spence’s book in hardcover, before the film came out – otherwise I would have had to face the dilemma of deciding whether I wanted to own it enough to put up with the film-inspired cover of the paperback.

For those who haven’t read it, Philip Pullman’s fantasy series His Dark Materials involves an alternate world, in which everyone has a “daemon” – an external, physical soul. The daemon takes the form of an animal – children’s daemon’s can change form at will, but they settle into a single form as the child grows up.

The official website for the upcoming film has a “meet your daemon” section, where you answer 20 personality questions, and you are told the name and form of your daemon. Mine is an ocelot called Lutheus. As an added feature of the site, for 12 days other people can provide feedback, which may make the daemon change before settling into a final form. If you want to provide feedback on my daemon, click the picture. (NB The 5 questions you get asked in the feedback form are not the same as any of the original questions – they are just based on the summary of characteristics the first questionnaire identified.)

30 April – Update
Lutheus has transformed twice – first into a raven, and now a lynx.

And the only excuse it the usual one – way too busy.

Sunshine at Hoyts, Broadway

I really enjoyed this film. It was as much about the psychological stresses as it was about the physical challenges: about making difficult decisions while under enormous pressures, and then dealing with the consequences.

The only thing I didn’t much like about it was that SPOILER FOLLOWS I would have preferred it if everything that went wrong had been the result of bad luck or bad judgement. Having deliberate sabotage turned the plot a bit too much into a straightforward get-the-bad-guy-save-the-world story. But although this was a detraction, it certainly didn’t spoil the film.

300 at Hoyts, Broadway

Lots of violence. Lots of shouting. Lots of muscles. Lots of visual effects (some of which were very striking). A bit more plot than I had expected. A lot more bling than I had expected. Not a lot of historical accuracy.

This was not a good film, but neither was it the video game that the trailer had made it look like.

Though perhaps the most interesting aspect of the experience was the fact that one of the pre-film ads was for female hygiene products. Looking around the audience, this film did not seem to have attracted the right demographic for that ad: I won’t say I was the only representative, but I was part of a very small minority.

The Season at the Sarsparilla (Patrick White ): Sydney Theatre Company at the Drama Theatre (Sydney Opera House)

I didn’t really enjoy this all that much, though that was more the circumstances than the production. We were in the third front row, which, at the Drama Theatre, means your eyes are about level with the actors’ feet – when you can see them around the tall person in front of you. And the woman next to me was wearing far too much scented powder. And most of the people sitting around us felt compelled to point out the bleeding obvious parts of the plot to their friends (normally about five minutes after the relevant point had become bleeding obvious).

So it was really hard to get into the play. One thing that did strike me, however, was the fact that when it was written it was contemporary, but this production very much emphasised the fact that it was “looking back” at how things used to be. I’m not sure whether it was trying to prompt nostalgia or a comfortable sense of modern superiority – or a combination of the two – but whichever it was, this was something that would clearly have been totally absent from original productions.

Hot Fuzz at Hoyts, Broadway

Heaps of fun. You really can’t go past a film that has a massive gun battle in the streets of Wells.

The Good German at Hoyts, Broadway

I wish I’d liked this film more than I did. It was visually great, George Clooney and Cate Blanchett looked absolutely perfect, it had lots of atmosphere, but overall it just didn’t quite work.

Troupers (Michael Cove): Sydney Theatre Company at the Wharf Theatre

I wasn’t really sure what to expect with this play, but in the end I really enjoyed it. At the centre were really strong performances by Barry Otto, Blazey Best and Natasha Wanganeen, but it was also a quite moving picture of post-WWI Australia. Powerful and poignant, but also funny – a good night at the theatre.

The Good Shepherd at Hoyts, Broadway

This was an okay film, but I found it rather dull. As with any film that follows one character over a large number of years, it was more a series of snapshots of the life, rather than an overall development of relationships. So the political background story was okay, but I didn’t think it really worked as a character piece.

Pan’s Labyrinth at Hoyts, Broadway

This film was a real celebration of the grotesque, with some amazing visual imagery. It was rather more violent than I had expected – not just shoot-em-up violence (though there was quite a lot of that), but also the kind of slow, deliberate, measured violence that is much more confronting. In fact, there was one scene that I absolutely couldn’t watch: I looked over the top of my glasses, so it was all blurred and I couldn’t see it properly. But none of the violence was gratuitous – the point seemed to be to set the fantasy monsters against the human ones.

I liked the fact that you were never 100% told whether the fantasy stuff was real, or just the girl’s imagination. There was some evidence for either side of the argument. I believe the evidence for it being real outweighed that for it being imagination (and from something I’ve read, I gather the director thinks the same) but I like that it is something every individual audience member can decide for themselves.

Films

I saw 22 films this year. The high points were probably Casino Royale, Flags of our Fathers and Superman Returns. The biggest disappointment was X-Men: The Last Stand, because it was so much weaker than the first two X-Men films. However, the actual Worst Film would be a competition between Lord of War (which I saw on a plane, so didn’t actually waste any money on), Tristan + Isolde and Mission: Impossible III.

Plays

I saw 12 plays in 2006 (though I only actually blogged 9 of them). Ten were from the Sydney Theatre Company subscriptions (although one of these – The History Boys – was actually a National Theatre of Great Britain production). Of the other two, one was the Russian production of Twelfth Night, which was here for the Sydney Festival, and the other was You Never Can Tell, which I saw in London. My favourites were probably Twelfth Night and Woman in Mind, and the worst was unquestionably The Lost Echo.

Books

I’ve been very slack about blogging books this year. However, in August I set up – and have been maintaining – a What I’m Reading book log. So I know that from August to the end of the year, I read 81 books – though two of them I gave up on, and another two I haven’t yet finished. 47 of them were first-time reads, and 34 were re-reads. Alternatively, I could sort them by target audience (48 adult, 9 young adult, 24 children) or by genre (25 fantasy/science fiction, 15 crime/thriller, 7 non-fiction, and the rest a variety).

It was quite a good year for new-books-by-favourite-authors. George R. R. Martin’s A Feast for Crows (book 4 in A Song of Ice and Fire) was a bit of a let down, but I don’t think it would have been possible to maintain the intensity of the third book in the series, and I still have high hopes for the rest of the story. Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Sharing Knife: Beguilement was enjoyable, but only half a story (the other half comes out this year), and I still prefer her Vorkosigan books. Jaclyn Moriarty’s The Betrayal of Bindy Mackenzie was interesting, but unlikely to become my favourite of her books. On the other hand, On the Jellicoe Road could end up being my favourite Melina Marchetta. The other exciting event was Under Orders – the first new Dick Francis in six years. It wasn’t his best work, but it was a long way from the structural mess of his last couple.

I think my favourite new author for the year would be Donna Andrews. Her chick-lit/detective story crossovers are a lot of fun, if not exactly great literature. I read them from the library, and I’ll hold off on buying them until I know for sure I want to re-read them, but I’m certainly hanging out for the latest (No Nest for the Wicket) to come out in paperback and turn up in the library. Other new (to me) authors included Naomi Novik (Anne McCaffrey meets Patrick O’Brien), Anthony Horowitz (James Bond for teenagers – and with some clearly conscious Fleming homages, which I’m sure people who’ve only seen the films don’t get) and Stella Rimington (spy stories by a former head of MI5). They were all enjoyable enough to read more than one of their books, but I didn’t get overly excited by any of them.