Monday, March 07, 2011
The end of Macbeth
Now got to the end of Polanski's version of Macbeth (March 3rd) and it still fails to ring many bells, although a large gang of naked old ladies did turn up. The main effect of which was to make us wonder where one goes to hire a large gang of old ladies who are prepared to bare all for the camera? When the idea is to look old and awful rather than young and beautiful? I remember Diana Rigg being old and awful in something but in this case she kept her clothes on and was rewarded by being the star of the show. There were some fairly gruesome fights and deaths. Lady Macbeth was quite good. But it remains a puzzle where my memories come from with Amazon not revealing any likely alternative version of Macbeth, so the scenes I remember must have been drawn from some other epic of sword & sorcery.
Along the way I found out that the 'Third Ear Band' did the sound track - a band whom I liked when a student and whom I last heard as the warm up act for the 'Rolling Stones' in Hyde Park in 1969 or so.
The dominant memory arising from the film is that of the gruesome murder of his starlet wife, which on checking I find to have been a few years before this film was made. A bit odd that he chose to make such a violent film in the circumstances.
That dealt with and given the cold outside, decided it was time for another round of red lentil soup. Made with basic bacon and turned out fine, only slightly marred by a scattering of the strange black specks. It is now some months since I reported such black specks to the customer service people at the Leatherhead Tesco, people who seemed very efficient at the time, but I have not heard back so I am still none the wiser as to what the specks might be. Would they offend a vegetarian or a vegan or both? Next time I am in the area I will pay them another visit and see if there is any record of my original report.
Next stop was the farmers' market, something which I tend to regard as a posh version of a craft fair. So instead of lower middle class ladies making bizarre ornaments of various sorts we have upper middle class ladies playing at farmer's wife and making bizarre eatables of various sorts. I also wonder whether they import the chutney base from China in large barrels, add a bit of local apple and then decant it into dinky little jars for sale - which they could quite properly describe as having been made on our own farm from our own produce. I tend to discourage attendance but happening to be near the market, broke my own rule and had a look, to find that I had been a little unfair.
I wound up buying two lobsters for £18, one rather larger than the other. Once home, realised that the smaller one was very light indeed and when opened found that there was not all that much inside at all. The tail bit was both shriveled and mushy and the claw bits were both shrunk and wet. We ate it all without ill effect, but it was not particularly appetising. The larger one much better. Taken with a light salad and a 2002 Castillon, this last being rather good. I now vaguely remember reading that crabs and lobsters should feel heavy; hopefully I will carry on remembering until I next buy such a thing.
Two small pork pies to go. The be-aproned and fake-hearty vendress of which offered a chilli flavoured variant, which I declined. For me, pork pies are quite strongly flavoured enough without adding more. Reminded of the disgusting pork pie I once bought on a motorway in the Midlands which came with built in cheese and pickle. Perhaps Middle England likes that sort of thing.
# posted by Jim @ 2:08 AM 
