w/e 2019-09-15

We’ve been in Edinburgh for the weekend, visiting my sister. Edinburgh’s always nice after London. Good views, attractive buildings, a decent size (i.e. smaller), less busy.

We stopped by my sister’s allotment at Leith Community Croft which was pleasant in itself — sunshine, a park, rhubarb — but there was also a tiny event going on with a handful of folk watching two people sing and play guitar. Standing in the sun in an allotment unexpectedly listening to a cover of Fade Into You was pretty good.

We went to see The Souvenir at Filmhouse which I haven’t been to since 1991. That’s not interesting, but it is true.

Anyway, The Souvenir was good. Slow and a bit bleak, and set in the 1980s without having to go “Look! A Rubik’s cube!” and all that kind of thing. Not a huge amount happens and I can’t imagine coming up with the story (based on writer/director Joanna Hogg’s life) and thinking it’d make an interesting film; it would seem too slight to me. But it does make a good film. It’s characters, not plot, I guess. In fact I can imagine other directors trying to make much more of it than Hogg does. It’s told slowly and subtly, in fragments, and Honor Swinton Byrne and Tom Burke were both good.

Not much else to report this week. I got some new jeans (from HIUT). So I feel slightly smarter than I did last week, and I will very slowly become less smart over the next couple of years or so until these need replacing in turn. The beautiful circle of life.