Scary PIRATES, scary TEACHERS and scary SNAKES

New in Cinemas:



Why not try new Independent Aussie murder thriller, Jindabyne (15)? Or, if you fancy three hours of pure entertainment, Jack is Back: Pirates of the Caribbean (12A) [WARNING: We will be going to see this for a big MLB reward trip after half term, so if you have been heavily involved in MLB this year, try to wait until then...]

New on DVD:



End your fear of spiders with cuddly kids' movie, Charlotte's Web, or look at the dark, underside of teacher-student relationships in Notes on a Scandal.

Films on TV:



Apollo 13 (Today, ITV1, 2.30pm) - classic Space disaster movie starring Tom Hanks
Capturing the Friedmans (Today, More4, 9.30pm) - raw and affecting look at mental illness
Training Day (Today, BBC1, 10.45pm) - Oscar-winning police movie with Ethan Hawke and Denzil Washington
Mission: Impossible (Sunday, ITV1, 3.30pm) - Tom Cruise's FIRST mission
I, Robot (Sunday, Film4, 9pm) - Will Smith battles the robots in this futuristic Sci-Fi
Ocean's Eleven (Monday, ITV1, 9pm) - see George and Brad on their first outing
Enduring Love (Monday, Film4, 9pm) - the film of the book (read more about the book here)
Anaconda (Monday, Five, 11pm) - so-bad-it's-brilliant killer snake movie
Saving Private Ryan (Wednesday, Five, 9pm) - extraordinary Spielberg war movie (especially that first 30 minutes!)

Invisible Friends

Kellyanne opened the car door and crawled into my bedroom. Her face was puffy and pale and fuzzed-over. She just came in and said: "Ashmol, Pobby and Dingan are maybe-dead." That's how she said it.

"Good," I said. "Perhaps you'll grow up now and stop being such a fruit loop."

Tears started sliding down her face. But I wasn't feeling any sympathy, and neither would you if you'd grown up with Pobby and Dingan.

"Pobby and Dingan aren't dead," I said, hiding my anger in a swig from my can of Mello Yello. "They never existed. Things that never existed can't be dead. Right?"

Kellyanne glared at me through tears the way she did the time I slammed the door of the ute in Dingan's face or the time I walked over to where Pobby was supposed to be sitting and punched the air and kicked the air in the head to show Kellyanne that Pobby was a figment of her imaginings. I don't know how many times I had sat at the dinner table saying: "Mum, why do you have to set places for Pobby and Dingan? They aren't even real." She put food out for them too. She said they were quieter and better behaved than me and deserved the grub.

"They ain't exactly good conversationists, but," I would say.

And at other times when Kellyanne held out Pobby and Dingan were real I would just sit there saying, "Are not. Are not. Are not," until she got bored of saying, "Are. Are. Are," and went running out screaming with her hands over her ears.

And many times I've wanted to kill Pobby and Dingan, I don't mind saying it.

This is an excerpt from a wonderful little book by Ben Rice, called Pobby and Dingan.

• To read the rest of the excerpt, click here.
• To read a review of the novel, click here.
• To buy the book, click here.

You're Beautiful

You're Beautiful
by Simon Armitage

You're Beautiful

because you're classically trained
I’m ugly because I associate piano wire with strangulation

You’re beautiful because you stop to read cards in newsagent windows
About lost cats and missing dogs.
I’m ugly because of what I did to that jelly fish with a lolly-stick and a big stone

You’re beautiful because for you politeness is instinctive and not a marketing
campaign.
I’m ugly because desperation is impossible to hide

Ugly like he is
Beautiful like hers
Beautiful like venus,
Ugly like his
Beautiful like she is
Ugly like mars

You’re beautiful because you believe in coincidence and the power of thought
I’m ugly because I proved god to be a mathematical impossibility

You’re beautiful because you prefer homemade soup to the packet stuff
I’m ugly because once at a dinner party
I defended the aristocracy and I wasn’t even drunk

You’re beautiful because you can’t work the remote control
I’m ugly because of satellite television and 24 hr rolling news

Ugly like he is
Beautiful like hers
Beautiful like venus,
Ugly like his
Beautiful like she is
Ugly like mars

You’re beautiful because you cry at funerals as well as weddings
I’m ugly because I think of children as a species from a different world

You’re beautiful because you look great in any colour including red
I’m ugly because I think shopping is strictly for the acquisition of material goods

You’re beautiful because when you were born, undiscovered planets
Lined up to peep over your cradle and lay gifts of gravity and light
At your miniature feet

I’m ugly for saying ‘love at first sight’ is another form of mistaken identity,
And the most human of responses is to gloat

Ugly like he is
Beautiful like hers
Beautiful like venus,
Ugly like his
Beautiful like she is
Ugly like mars

You’re beautiful because you’ve never seen the inside of a car-wash
I’m ugly because I always ask for a receipt

You’re beautiful for sending a box of shoes to the third world
I’m ugly because I remember the phone numbers of ex-girlfriends
And the year Schubert was born

You’re beautiful because you sponsored a parrot in a zoo
I’m ugly because I when I sigh it’s like the slow collapse of a circus tent

Ugly like he is
Beautiful like hers
Beautiful like venus,
Ugly like his
Beautiful like she is
Ugly like mars

You’re beautiful because you can point at a man in uniform and laugh
I’m ugly because I was a police informer in a previous life

You’re beautiful because you drink three litres of water and eat three pieces
Of fruit a day.
I’m ugly for taking the line that a meal without meat is a beautiful woman
With one eye

You’re beautiful because you don’t see love as a competition and you know
how to lose
I’m beautiful because I kissed the FA cup and held it up to the crowd

You’re beautiful because of a single buttercup in the top button hole of your
cardigan
I’m ugly because I said the world's strongest woman was a muscle man in a
dress

You’re beautiful because you couldn’t live in a lighthouse.
I’m ugly for making hand-shadows in front of the giant bulb,
So when they
look up,
The captains of vessels in distress see the ears of a rabbit, or a eye of a fox,
Or the legs of a galloping horse.

• To hear the poet read this poem out loud, click here.

• Click here to visit the author's website.

A pianist, a player (and a couple of magicians...)

All the good films out at the cinema this week are Certificate 15 or above, so most of you will not be able to see them until they come out on DVD. Click on the film to view a trailer:

• Black Snake Moan (15) - the new Samuel L. Jackson film, set in the deep south of the USA, and all passion and god-fearing...
• Magicians (15) - a british comedy starring Mitchell and Webb (from TV comedies Peep Show and That Mitchell And Webb Look, and also from the new PC v. Mac adverts) all about two rival magicians.
• Zodiac (15) - disturbing thriller from David Fincher, director of seminal movies Fight Club and Se7en, all about an infamous serial killer in 1970s San Francisco.

Not so many good films on terrestrial TV this week (apart from cult British gangster movie, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels - Thu 10pm Channel 4). But, if you've got Freeview, you can catch the following:

• Vera Drake (Today, 9pm, Film4) - heavy, depressing but brilliant study of one woman's fight to help young women in desperate need to have an abortion.
• The Pianist (Sunday, 10.15pm, ITV3) - inspiring, harrowing, Oscar-winning film about the redemptive power of music, set against the backdrop of the Nazi holocaust of Polish Jews.
• Manon des Sources (Wednesday, 6.50pm, Film4) - beautiful sequel to French film, Jean de Florette, about a rural community torn apart by a battle over a precious water supply.
• Four Weddings and a Funeral (Wednesday, 9.00pm, Film4) and Notting Hill (Wednesday, 11.15pm, Film4) - two classic British romantic comedies which made a star of Hugh Grant and developed the comedic talents of writer, Richard Curtis (Blackadder and Love Actually)
• The Player (Friday, 11.10pm, Film4) - important, epic satire of Hollywood, interweaving numerous storylines to show tinseltown in all its cruelty, ugliness and duplicity

And also on television:

• Indian School (Wednesday, 8.30pm, BBC4) - fascinating series about the Indian education system, eye-opening and educative
• Reader, I married him... (Tuesday, 11.20pm, BBC2) - Documentary exploring the tradition of the romantic novel, from the classics through to the present day.
• Balderdash & Piffle (Friday, 10.00pm, BBC2) - study of language and how it develops, focusing this week on euphemisms (and how they end up in the dictionary!)
  

And out on DVD this week:

• Babel (15) - one of the most extraordinary films I have ever seen, this looks at just how rubbish human beings are at really communicating with each other, and the dire consequences it can have, all shot through the mesmerising lens of filmmaker Alejandro Gonzalex Inarritu. WARNING: I will be showing this in FILM CLUB in June, so avoid it until then if you are a film club member!
  

Wide oceans full of tears...

I pictured a rainbow
You held it in your hand
I had flashes
But you saw the plan
I wandered out in the world for years
While you just stayed in your room
I saw the crescent
You saw the whole of the moon

You were there in the turnstiles
With the wind at your heels
You stretched for the stars
And you know how it feels
To reach too high, too far too soon
You saw the whole of the moon

I was grounded
While you filled the skies
I was dumbfounded by truth
You cut through lies
I saw the rain dirty valley
You saw "Brigadoon"
I saw the crescent
You saw the whole of the moon

I spoke about wings
You just flew
I wondered, I guessed and I tried
You just knew
I sighed
And you swooned
I saw the crescent
You saw the whole of the moon

The torch in your pocket
And the wind on your heels
You climbed on the ladder
And you know how it feels
To get too high, too far, too soon
You saw the whole of the moon

Unicorns and cannonballs
Palaces and piers
Trumpets, towers, and tenaments
Wide oceans full of tears
Flags, rags, ferryboats
Scimitars and scarves
Every precious dream and vision
Underneath the stars

Yes, you climbed on the ladder
With the wind in your sails
You came like a comet
Blazing your trail
Too high, too far, too soon
You saw the whole of the moon.

This poem provides the lyrics for the 1985 song, 'The Whole of the Moon' by a band called The Waterboys, and is written by Mike Scott. You can listen to the song here.

I have chosen it because of the way in which the whole poem is built around constant juxtaposition (combining opposites). The narrator finds endlessly creative ways to compare himself with the far superior person to whom he is speaking...

My mother liked to wrestle!

Like most people I lived for a long time with my mother and father. My father liked to watch the wrestling, my mother liked to wrestle; it didn't mater what. She was in the white corner and that was that.

She hung out the largest sheets on the windiest days. She wanted the Mormons to knock on the door. At election time in a Labour mill town she put a picture of the Conservative candidate in the window.

She had never heard of mixed feelings. There were friends and there were enemies.

Enemies were:
The Devil (in his many forms)
Next Door
Sex (in its many forms)
Slugs

Friends were:
God
Our dog
Auntie Madge
The Novels of Charlotte Brontë
Slug pellets

and me, at first, I had been brought in to join her in a tag match against the Rest of the World. She had a mysterious attitude towards the begetting of children; it wasn't that she couldn't do it, more that she didn't want to do it. She was very bitter about the Virgin Mary getting there first. So she did the next best thing and arranged for a foundling. That was me.

I cannot recall a time when I did not know that I was special. We had no Wise Men because she didn't believe there were any wise men, but we had sheep. One of my earliest memories is me sitting on a sheep at Easter while she told me the story of the Sacrificial Lamb. We had it on Sundays with potato.

This is an excerpt from Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson - a novel about a girl trying to break free from the control of her tyrannical mother and the religious cult to which she belongs.

To read the rest of this excerpt, click here.
To buy the book, click here.
To find it in a local library, click here.
To visit the author's website, click here.

The First Rambo and the Last King

As requested by many of you in the Web 2.0 survey, each week I will recommend films that you can see a) on terrestrial TV each week; b) on DVD; and c) at the cinema.

Please use the COMMENTS facility to post your own REVIEWS of any of the films each week. And click on the hyperlinks to read reviews of each film; and on the posters to visit imdb.com and find out everything else you need to know...

On TV:
Arlington Road (Sat 12th, 10.40pm, C4) - scary thriller, sure to make you scared of your neighbours
Ray (Tue 15th, 9pm, ITV1) - actor Jamie Foxx brings to life jazz legend, Ray Charles
First Blood (Fri 18th, 11.35pm, BBC1) - iconic, watershed Vietnam movie introducing forgotten veteran Rambo to the silver screen
O (Fri 18th, 12.35am, BBC2) - modern re-telling of Othello, one of Shakespeare's greatest plays

New on DVD:
The Last King of Scotland (15) - Oscar-winning film about the brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin's regime
Perfume (15) - Perfume-maker turns serial killer in his search for the ultimate




Out at Cinemas:
Bridge to Terabithia (PG) - Narnia-like fantasy, but with a darker edge

Why bother with punctuation and capital letters?!

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

by e. e. cummings

To read more poems by the miraculous e. e. cummings, click here.

To read about the poet himself, click here.

And to read some famous quotations by cummings, click here.

"Murder, not to put too fine a point on it."

Shelter:

"You sure?" he says. The light's back, and I can see his little brain working. He's thinking, this guy runs a hostel. Warm beds. Grub. It gets full. but if I'm with him, I'm in, right? "You sure?" he says. I gave him the smile again. "Sure. No prob. It's just round the corner."

And that's all there was to it. I strode out and he trotted at my heels like a ruddy poodle. It was pissing it down and he was sodden by the time he reached the flat. I introduced Sappho, showed him the bathroom, told him to strip off, threw in some stuff I'd got for the purpose - thick sweaters, cord trousers - the sort of stuff do-gooders wear - and went off to heat some tomato soup, and while he was sitting on the sofa scoffing it I slipped up behind him and put him out of his misery.

Cruel? I don't think so. He's neither cold nor hungry now. Nobody wanted him, so nobody will miss him, and there's one less dosser to clutter up the place.

Who loses?

Link:

You can call me Link. It's not my name, but it's what I say when anybody asks, which isn't often. I'm invisible, see? One of the invisible people. Right now, I'm sitting in a doorway watching the passers-by. They avoid looking at me. They're afraid I want something they've got, and they're right. Also, they don't want to think about me. They don't like reminding I exist. Me, and those like me. We're living proof that everything's not all right, and we make the place untidy.

Hang about and I'll tell you the story of my fascinating life.

In 1994, Children's author, Robert Swindells, wrote Stone Cold, a novel about a SERIAL KILLER who calls himself Shelter, and who prowls the streets of London killing all the homeless people he kind find - people like Link...

Buy it here (or borrow a copy from the English Dept stock room at school).
Read some reviews here.
Find out more about the author here.

So how many have YOU read?

Since September, I have recommended 28 DIFFERENT NOVELS to you.


So how many of the novels have you read?

It would do you no harm to have read ALL of them: perhaps you didn't get round to it at the time; perhaps you meant to but then forgot. Either way, use this post to remind yourself about what you read and what you missed - and decide what you will set aside to read over the coming months.

This week, I would like you to use the blog to post COMMENTS in which you recommend the books and poems you have ENJOYED the most. Give as many reasons as possible, so that other readers can decide what they want to try out too...

Here is what I have recommended (click on each one to read the post itself...)

Novels:

• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
  
• Waterland
• Lord of the Flies
• Day of the Triffids
• Goodnight Mister Tom
  
• A Room with a View
• Regeneration
• Haroun and the Sea of Stories
• Junk
• Dracula
• The Cement Garden
• The Virgin Suicides
• The Handmaid's Tale
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Like Water for Chocolate
• Enduring Love
• The Wasp Factory
• Difficult Daughters
• The Outsiders
• Noughts and Crosses
• Caught in the Crossfire
• The Bird Artist
• The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
• Witch Child
• The Tulip Touch
• Walkabout
• Love That Dog
• The Wave

From next week, I shall try to make some changes to this blog, in line with the suggestions you have all made in the survey you completed. So watch this space...