Being vegan: Day 11

Not a great deal to say except I'm enjoying my newly found (and temporary) veganism, my wife is less angry and I've had some very nice meals. Friends fed me a vegetable soup thing with sweet potatoes, Yol made chick peas and macaroni, I made sour chick pea curry with ocra and tomatoes and rice and yesterday I had a Pizza Express Giardana without cheese. I've been drinking copious quantities of vegan wine, spirits and vegan society-approved beers. I think I've lost a small amount of weight but feel pretty good all round. Sunday I went for my longest swim so far.

Being Vegan: Day Five

The thing about not eating meat, fish and dairy is how expensive it all is. I had so-so vegetarian sushi and a miso soup from Pret for lunch yesterday which came to £4.25 and today I spent £17.50 in Holland and Barett on pumpkin seeds, cashew nuts and the like and I still haven't got enough to make a meal.

Being Vegan: Day Three

I've eaten a lot of hummus so far: Falafel wrap with salad and hummus for lunch yesterday from a sandwich joint round here and today a home-made roll of hummus and salad. Last night was a vegetable stir-fry with rice noodles and a salad. I've been eating lots of fruit but probably not as much as I usually do - I think this might be that the food and portions I'm eating now are much bulkier than my normal diet.

Things that annoy me: loads of products that you'd expect to be animal-fat free aren't. Here I'm thinking of margarine. Yesterday in Sainsbury's I went through all the margarine tubs and they all had whey derived from cow's milk. Dirty fuckers.

My fellow diet-alterer, Maria, who's foresaken booze for a month is, I suspect, having a much worse time. Her plan is not going out after work for a month. I think the bit she hasn't accounted for is the solo home drinking she used to enjoy.

Being Vegan: day one

"I appear to be drinking a cup of warm piss," I reflect on leaving the kitchen area at work. It's pale yellow-green in a white cup. It's green tea.

It's part of my on-going war of attrition with my friend Maria brought about through drinking a bottle of Turkish red wine each in Mangals and then initially taking a vow that for 30 days she wouldn't drink any booze while I wouldn't eat meAt or fish. My part of the bet was upgraded (such is the way of drunks) to "leading a vegan lifestyle" and then lately, after I'd done some research (and decided I wasn't going to buy a) vegan shoes and b) a wool-free suit), downgraded to "eating a vegan diet" for 30 days.

So far it's going well but then all I've done so far is eat porridge with soya milk for breakfast, a baked potato with margarine and baked beans for lunch and two apples and a sharon fruit ion-between. I went to the local health food shop and bought a box of "Fruit, Nut and Seed Bars" this afternoon ("gluten-free; wheat-free; dairy-free; vegetarian; vegan") which were a) pretty horrible and b) very expensive. Luckily they also seem to be quite filling as tonight is the-place-I-work's 25th anniversary staff party. The posh one for the high-ups and the industry bigwigs was last week, this one is (I imagine) a drunken booze-fest fuelled by Breezers, slammers, shots, vodka fountains and other assorted niceties. I won't be eating at the do as I can't guarantee the provenance of the canapes and my sketchy research reveals that spirits are safe for vegans but the use of animal-derived fining agents in much wine and beer rules them out without more detailed work on my part.

Lust, Caution

Ang Lee's new film Lust, Caution has been previewing around London having first screened at Venice. It's long, it's very beautiful to look at, it has amazing costumes and outstanding performances, not least from its two leads the masterful Tony Leung and newbie actress Tang Wei. So why wasn't I more impressed and why did the whole thing leave me feeling pretty cold?

This is from Geoffrey Macnab's piece in the Guardian:
The film tells the story of a young drama student, Wang Jiazhi (Tang Wei), drawn into a plot to assassinate the shadowy Mr Yee (Tony Leung), a collaborator with the Japanese in the Shanghai of the early 1940s. Mr Yee is a cold and brutal man. While his wife (Joan Chen) and her friends play Mah Jong and discuss their favourite restaurants, he oversees the torture and killing of resistance fighters. Wang is ordered to get close to Mr Yee in order to prise him out into the open. In the end, they begin a very violent, sado-masochistic affair. Their feelings for one another teeter between love and utter loathing. They instinctively distrust one another but can't hide their mutual fascination. At times, it is as if they hope that through their extreme and acrobatic sex together they can finally work out each others' motives and true personality. This is as much a tale of amour-fou as it is a thriller.

I suspect my problem lies here: what is described generally (not just by Macnab) as a relationship where they "can't hide their mutual fascination" where their feelings "teeter between love and utter loathing" seems to me more like an abusive relationship instigated and conducted by the stronger partner over the weaker one. While I get Mr Yee's initial lusting after her (hey, she's young and gorgeous) I really don't get what she's meant to see in him. Is it his cruelty or simply that he's Tony Leung and as an audience we're not meant to see much further than that?

While many won't see past the athleticism of the sex scenes The New York Times has an excellent review that sees past this to the flaws in the characters and the story. My view is that Lust, Caution while beautifully shot and acted is still pure hokey.

The barbershop from Eastern Promises

The barbershop from Eastern Promises
Originally uploaded by Catfunt

Regular readers will know that David Cronenberg's new film Eastern Promises is currently my film of the year despite Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly's best efforts to dislodge it. I was probably swayed by the fact that Cronenberg came across very well in the Radio 4 interview with Mark Lawson (no longer available on listen again) and Schnabel didn't when I saw him Q&Aed at Bafta. I found his name-dropping irritating but only because of his failure having mentioned Marty (Scorsese) or Harvey (Keitel) or David (Bowie) to delivery an interesting anecdote about them. Schnabel's a name-dropping celebrity cock-tease.

The worst bits of Eastern Promises are pure B movie (which isn't such a bad thing to be in my book) but the good bits are jaw-droppingly good. Both movies are flawed: the resolution in Promises isn't all it could be and the last third of Diving Bell drags a bit but both are definite ones to see.

Anyway, the point of this post was that the barbershop in the opening scene of Eastern Promises is the barbershop on Broadway market where I get my hair cut (£8.50). When I went in yesterday the nice barber pointed out some of the things they'd done to his shop for the filming including painting the sign you can see here which he's left on the window. And at the time I just thought he'd redecorated.

Louise Bourgeois: Le Suicide Threat

Louise Bourgeois: Le Suicide Threat
Originally uploaded by Catfunt

Louise Bourgeois at Tate Modern, October 2007. This one's called "Le Suicide Threat" and it's one of my favourite pieces in what is an excellent show. The show covers Bourgeois's painting, drawing, sculpture and installations in a career that covers most of the 20th century. Bourgeois's like Picasso but more relevant and less celebrated.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le Scaphandre et le papillon): Hot ladies and the rest

Went to a screening of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Julian Schnabel's adaptation of the autobiographical book of the same title by Jean-Dominique Bauby which recounts his life after suffering a stroke that left him almost totally paralysed. "The guy who dictated his book by blinking his eyelid" is how everyone refers to him and while that in itself is a remarkable achievement, what's best in the film is the simple but visually stunning way that Bauby's experience of locked-in syndrome is recounted. By all accounts the book is quite something (I haven't read it) and gives fuller rein to Bauby's attempts to deal with his state through humour (according to my wife). The film is definitely worth seeing and the opening 15 minutes or so are pure cinema, the story seen quite literally from Bauby's point of view as he first comes round out of his coma post-stroke. (All the effects were done in camera, often using a movable back on the camera resulting in the blurring of the action). There are some nice quirks to the film that made me smile not least the fact that this being a French movie all the women in it from the girl-friend and mistress to the speech therapist are all really hot (and not just Emmanuelle Seigner).

There are a couple clips on YouTube of Schnabel talking about the film:
Reasons to make the film (including fact that Johnny depp was in line for part of Bauby originally)
Biographical aspects of the film

Schnabel did a Q&A after the Bafta screening where he gave TimeOut magazine's film editor Dave Calhoun the runaround and generally came across as a bit of a prick. I like to think that the YouTube clips above are more indicative of what he's like in real life (but he's still an inveterate name-dropper).

Spectrum Art Auction: specialist autistic care and support

Following the charity art auction for Bethan's Fund that I helped out with a while ago I've been asked by the organisers of the Spectrum art auction if I can mention it here. Below there's the blurb from the website about the charity's work but the first thing I noticed is the fantastic range of artists who've donated work to the auction which includes the piece by Stella Vine here, a signed book from Damien Hirst, pieces by Eine, Paul Insect, Chris Levine, Immodesty Blaize, Katiejane Garside, Gary Lucas, Gerald Laing, D*Face, James Jessops, Lucy Mclauchlan, Cher, David Arquette, Architects such as Lord Norman Foster, Sir Nicholas Grimshaw and Top LA Architect Matthew Stokes. There's a full list here. Some of the work is being auctioned online and some at an event on 3 November. All the details are on the website.

From the Spectrum website:
"Spectrum is a provider of specialist residential, respite and educational services based in Cornwall, UK. From the small beginnings of a residential service at St. Erme, Truro, Cornwall, for ten young adults cared for by seven members of staff in 1982, Spectrum has developed into a recognised leader in the field of specialist autistic care and support. Currently nearly 100 service users referred from all over the UK are cared for by 350 staff in 23 homes and a small special school situated in the beautiful county of Cornwall on the south west peninsula of the UK."

Eastern Promises: My new film of the year

So Control only got to be my film of the year for a few weeks (like buses, there's dross for months and then two great films come along in a matter of weeks) to be replaced by David Cronenberg's new thriller, Eastern Promises, which is set amongst the Russian gangster class of contemporary London. Excitingly (for me at least) a lot of the exteriors were shot round Hackney with the opening shot featuring the Joy Tandoori, our local curry house, on fashionable Broadway market. By way of a warning to the squimish it does feature several scenes of extreme visceral violence (which are quite amazing) but if you liked A History of Violence then you're in for a real treat and yet again Viggo Mortensen is outstanding.