Hail, King Shrek!

In cinemas this week:
Even though the reviews are not very good, you might not be able to resist the green allure of everyone's favourite ogre in:
Shrek the Third (PG)






Out on DVD this week:
Nicolas Cage playes stunt rider, Johnny Blaze, who sold his soul to the devil and is now finally having to pay the price in:
Ghost Rider (15)






And on TV this week:
Stealing Beauty (Sunday, 9.00pm, Film4) - 'Coming of age' drama starring Liv Tyler (and directed by the legendary Bernardo Bertolucci)
Die Hard 2 (Monday, 11.0W0pm, ITV1) - 'Die Harder': John McClane is back for more edge-of-your-seat action
Falling Down (Monday, 9.00pm, ITV2) - Violent and disturbing look at the effect of repressed aggression in modern America, starring Michael Douglas.
Road to Perdition (Monday, 9.00pm, Film4) - Bonds of loyalty are put to the test when a hitman's son witnesses what his father does for a living.
Wimbledon (Friday, 8.30pm, ITV1) - Lightweight romantic comedy, which should at least provide an antidote for those fed up of the tennis!

The Children in the Playground

Tonight I am going to see a poetry performance at the Purcell Rooms in London's South Bank Centre, and one of the poets performing is John Hegley. So I thought that I would post another of his poems as this week's Poem of the Week...

The Children in the Playground

In the playground
the children are playing a game of kiss chase
and one of the children
who seems to want to be chased after
calls out above the screams and laughter
don't chase me!
don't chase me!
and nobody does

A Swift Pure Cry

A Swift Pure Cry by Siobhan Dowd is a beautiful, lyrical novel about teenager, Shell, whose life begins to fall apart when her mother dies. Tired of looking after her younger brother and sister and bored by the routines of school and church, Shell skips school and hangs around with her friends smoking and cracking jokes and looking for chances that will confirm their growing up.

But what follows is not a simple transition into adulthood but the tragedy of Shell’s hidden pregnancy and the stillbirth of her baby, amid the hypercritical and chaotic thinking of the small Irish community in which she is growing up. No wonder this was also the winner of a prestigious prize this year - the Branford Boase Award 2007.

Click here to download a free extract from the novel.

A televisual movie FEAST!!!

Nothing particularly special out this week at the cinema or on DVD, but that is certainly not the case on TV. This week's television listings boast LOADS of excellent films, of which these are just a selection. (*As always, however, please check with your parents before you watch any of these, as some of them have adult content your parents might not want you to watch.)

The Green Mile (Sunday, 9.00pm, Film 4) - Starring Tom Hanks, this critically acclaimed prison drama was based on a Stephen King short story, just like The Shawshank Redemption (showing at the Film Club in July).
28 Days Later (Sunday, 10.00pm, Channel 4) - The sequel to this terrifying, British 'Zombie' film, 28 Weeks Later, is in cinemas now; see how the 'rage' first began...
The Silence of the Lambs (Sunday, 10.00pm, ITV2) - Terrifying and certainly not for the faint-hearted, this film immortalised Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter, and his taste for human liver...with "a nice Chianti".
Die Hard (Monday, 11.00pm, ITV1) - Die Hard 4.0 is out in cinemas next month; see how it all began, when Bruce Willis' John Maclane was first 'in the wrong place at the wrong time'.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (Tuesday, 9.00pm, ITV2) - Kenneth Branagh brings Shelley's gothic horror to the big screen, with a monster made real by Robert De Niro.
East Is East (Tuesday, 10.00pm, More4) - Wonderful film version of Ayub Khan-Din's comedy about a Pakistani family in Salford, and their struggle against the strict Muslim ways their father is trying to preserve.
The King (Tuesday, 10.45pm, Film4) - Gael Garcia Bernal (Babel) plays a prodigal son returning to a Texan town to find his estranged father, with disastrous consequences for the whole family.
Gladiator (Wednesday, 9.00pm, Film4) - Ridley Scott's epic, Oscar-laden depiction of Russel Crowe's Roman 'gladiator' wreaking revenge on the prince who killed his family.
The Magdalene Sisters (Thursday, 9.00pm, Film4) - Three young Irish women struggle to maintain their spirits while they endure dehumanizing abuse as inmates of a Magdalene Sisters Asylum: provocative but compelling.
Out Of Sight (Friday, 10.20pm, ITV2) - Fans of Oceans 11/12/13 will love George Clooney's stylish turn here as an escaped bank robber entwined with Jennifer Lopez's Detroit cop.
The Big Lebowski (Friday, 11.10pm, Film4) - You might not like this one, but I couldn't let it pass without bringing it to your attention; it is one of my top 10 films of all time.

I learn by going where I have to go...

'The Waking'
by Theodore Roethke

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

from a Portrait of Theodore Roethke (by Mike Nease),
which hangs at Seattle's Blue Moon Tavern

• To see more poems by Theodore Roethke, click here.

• To find out more about the poet himself, click here.

• To read a difficult but fascinating essay about the poem, click here.

The best ever Carnegie award winner!!!

This week, this year's Carnegie Award winner was announced. The Carnegie award is the country's premier prize for teenage fiction. The 2007 winner is called Just In Case and was written by Meg Rosoff (who also wrote How I Live Now - last week's recommendation).

This is what the Carnegie judges had to say about the book:

A story that deals with anxiety, depression and coming of age that has real emotional resonance. This is a distinctive and outstanding book written in an intelligent, yet spare style. There is an ‘edginess’ to the way the author writes; the result is clever and bold. The character of the teenage boy is conveyed in an interesting way and is not at all stereotypical. This is a story of survival in the modern world that is utterly compelling.

Also, this week, the Carnegie panel looked at ALL the Carnegie award winners over the last 70 years, and decided on the ONE book which they felt outshone ALL the others: the Carnegie of Carnegies! And this prestigious and unprecedented prize went to Northern Lights, the first of Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' trilogy.

An extraordinary journey into a fantasy world, it follows Lyra, accompanied by her daemon, Pantalaimon, on a quest to find Lyra's friend, Roger, who has disappeared. Their travels lead them to the bleak splendour of the North where a team of scientists are conducting unspeakably horrible experiments. The novel is soon to hit the silver screen, with The Golden Compass due in cinemas in December.

You can download an EXTRACT from both of these prize-winning novels by clicking here.

To view the whole list of the Top 10 Carnegies EVER, click here.

This week's films...

Not many great films on TV this week, but I can highly recommend:


Memento (Tue, 9.00pm, Film4) - The story of a man, suffering from short-term memory loss, who uses notes and tattoos to hunt for the man he thinks killed his wife; but the amazing thing here is not the story itself, but HOW it is told.



Not much to celebrate at cinemas this week either, but, if you like your action blockbusters, you could try:


Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer (PG) - The Fantastic Four learn that they aren't the only super-powered beings in the universe when they square off against the powerful Silver Surfer and the planet-eating Galactus.




And new on DVD this week:

Blood Diamond (15) - Leonardo DiCaprio film about a fisherman, a smuggler, and a syndicate of businessmen who match wits over the possession of a priceless diamond, this is a ruthless indictment of the illegal trade in 'conflict diamonds' which is ripping apart much of the developing world.

...the solving emptiness

'Ambulances' by Philip Larkin

Closed like confessionals, they thread
Loud noons of cities, giving back
None of the glances they absorb.
Light glossy grey, arms on a plaque,
They come to rest at any kerb:
All streets in time are visited.

Then children strewn on steps or road,
Or women coming from the shops
Past smells of different dinners, see
A wild white face that overtops
Red stretcher-blankets momently
As it is carried in and stowed,

And sense the solving emptiness
That lies just under all we do,
And for a second get it whole,
So permanent and blank and true.
The fastened doors recede. Poor soul,
They whisper at their own distress;

For borne away in deadened air
May go the sudden shut of loss
Round something nearly at an end,
And what cohered in it across
The years, the unique random blend
Of families and fashions, there

At last begin to loosen. Far
From the exchange of love to lie
Unreachable inside a room
The traffic parts to let go by
Brings closer what is left to come,
And dulls to distance all we are.

To read more poems by Philip Larkin, click here.
To find out more about the poet himself, click here.
To watch a Sky TV News piece about Larkin's 'lost tapes', click here.

...everything changed because of Edmond.

My name is Elizabeth but no one's ever called me that. My father took one look at me when I was born and must have thought I had the face of someone dignified and sad like an old-fashioned queen or a dead person, but what I turned out like is plain, not much there to notice. Even my life so far has been plain. More Daisy than Elizabeth from the word go.

But the summer I went to England to stay with my cousins everything changed. Part of that was because of the war, which supposedly changed lots of things, but I can't remember much about life before the war anyway so it doesn't count in my book, which this is.

Mostly everything changed because of Edmond.

And so here's what happened.

• Click here to read the rest of this extract from How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff.
• Click here for an excellent review of the novel.
• Click here to read about the responses to the book by three different Reading Groups, including one from a secondary school in Debden, not far from Leyton.

Cops and robbers (and some very dangerous monkeys)

New at cinemas
Ten Canoes (15) - rare, beautiful movie about Aboriginal culture, storytelling (and a bit of romance)
Oceans Thirteen (15) - George, Brad and Matt return with their oh-so-cool band of thieves for a third time



New on DVD
Hot Fuzz (15) - The 'Shaun of the Dead' team return with this hilarious action spoof (which also manages to be a great action film in itself too).
Apocalypto (18) - Mel Gibson does 'the end of the Mayan civilisation' like only Mel can.



On TV this week
The Butterfly Effect (Sat, 10.15pm, Channel 4) - complex, teen sci-fi about chaos theory and the power of time travel
The Last of the Mohicans (Sat, 9.00pm, Film4) - epic, award-winning portrayal of life within warring Native American communities
Breakfast at Tiffany's (Sun, 3.55pm, More4) - classic, oscar-winning, 1961 romance starring Audrey Hepburn
Outbreak (Sun, 6.30pm, ITV2) - virus-spreading thriller, and Dustin Hoffman tries to contain the threat
The Talented Mr Ripley (Mon, 9.00pm, Film4) - gripping thriller about duplicitous, machiavellian master-of-disguises, Tom Ripley
Jack and Sarah (Wed, 6.55pm, Film4) - Jack loses his wife in childbirth, and this romantic comedy sees him learning to be a father - all on his own
Phone Booth (Thu, 9.00pm, Film4) - totally gripping thriller where a rather nasty (and clever) terrorist keeps Colin Farrell literally hanging on the line

I found him in the garage

I found him in the garage on a Sunday afternoon. It was the day after we moved into Falconer Road. The winter was ending. Mum had said we'd be moving just in time for the spring. Nobody else was there. Just me. The others were inside the house with Dr. Death, worrying about the baby.

He was lying there in the darkness behind the tea chests, in the dust and dirt. It was as if he'd been there forever. He was filthy and pale and dried out and I thought he was dead. I couldn't have been more wrong. I'd soon begin to see the truth about him, that there'd never been another creature like him in the world.

We called it the garage because that's what the real estate agent, Mr. Stone, called it. It was more like a demolition site or a rubbish dump or like one of those ancient warehouses they keep pulling down at the wharf. Stone led us down the garden, tugged the door open, and shined his little flashlight into the gloom. We shoved our heads in at the doorway with him.

"You have to see it with your mind's eye," he said. "See it cleaned, with new doors and the roof repaired. See it as a wonderful two-car garage."

He looked at me with a stupid grin on his face.

"Or something for you, lad-a hideaway for you and your pals. What about that, eh?"

I looked away. I didn't want anything to do with him. All the way round the house it had been the same. Just see it in your mind's eye. Just imagine what could be done. All the way round I kept thinking of the old man, Ernie Myers, that had lived here on his own for years. He'd been dead nearly a week before they found him under the table in the kitchen. That's what I saw when Stone told us about seeing with the mind's eye. He even said it when we got to the dining room and there was an old cracked toilet sitting there in the comer behind a plywood screen. I just wanted him to shut up, but he whispered that toward the end Ernie couldn't manage the stairs. His bed was brought in here and a toilet was put in so everything was easy for him. Stone looked at me like he didn't think I should know about such things. I wanted to get out, to get back to our old house again, but Mum and Dad took it all in. They went on like it was going to be some big adventure. They bought the house. They started cleaning it and scrubbing it and painting it. Then the baby came too early. And here we were.

This is an extract from Skellig by David Almond. Winner of countless awards when it was first published in 2001, it tells the story of Michael, a schoolboy who discovers a miraculous companion hiding in the decrepid remains of his family shed. It's a beautiful, sentimental novel - about hope, love and the power of dreams... Some of you might have read it with me in Y7; to the rest of you, I would highly recommend it. [And we've copies in the stock room to lend you if you so wish...]

To read a review of the novel, click here.
To find out more about the author, David Almond, click here.
To buy the book, click here.

When the black dreams came...

'Autobiography'
by Louise Macneice (1907-1963)

In my childhood trees were green
And there was plenty to be seen.
Come back early or never come.

My father made the walls resound,
He wore his collar the wrong way round.
Come back early or never come.

My mother wore a yellow dress;
Gentle, gently, gentleness.
Come back early or never come.

When I was five the black dreams came;
Nothing after was quite the same.
Come back early or never come.

The dark was talking to the dead;
The lamp was dark beside my bed.
Come back early or never come.

When I woke they did not care;
Nobody, nobody was there.
Come back early or never come.

When my silent terror cried,
Nobody, nobody replied.
Come back early or never come.

I got up; the chilly sun
Saw me walk away alone.
Come back early or never come.

* * * *

MacNeice's mother suffered gynaecological problems, a mental breakdown, which meant she left the family to go into a nursing-home in 1913, and, finally, death from tuberculosis a year later - when Macneice was only 6 years old. The loss of his mother at such an early age had a profound and lasting effect on him; his sister Elizabeth writes that “His last memory-picture of her walking up and down the garden path in tears seems to have haunted him for the rest of his life”. '

Autobiography', therefore, is exactly that...

To find out loads of interesting things about the poet and his life, click here.
To read more of his poems, click here.

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.