Michael Sheen – derrickjknight

A Bustling Bar

After lunch yesterday I watched ‘The Special Relationship’, scriptwriter Peter Morgan’s imagined version of the personal friendship between Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. It was fascinating fiction blended with factual events during a dramatic period of our history. The performances of Michael Sheen, now quite adept at playing the former British Prime Minister, and Dennis Quaid as his American counterpart were excellent; as were those of Hope Davis and Helen McCrory as the two wives.

Blue sky vying with sombre clouds, peeping over the garden wall this morning never quite won the battle today, but it was pleasant enough.

After a morning’s reading, I lunched at a heaving Code Bar. So busy was it, especially for a winter’s weekday, that I told David he should be very proud. He was. When there is no general hubbub in such an establishment, even if quieter than today, I am easily distracted by music or individual conversations. Not so today. The background noise was a medley of a pop group, volume turned right down, performing on the wide screen television; the hum of voices speaking at such a rate that I couldn’t understand a word; the clattering of cutlery and crockery; and the tinkling of the till. This merges into a rhythmic sound like a gentle wind or a trickling stream which does not disturb rambling thoughts. Frederick, who does the bulk of the waiting while David tends the bar, dashed around like a jackrabbit. Here I use a phrase coined from something I’ve never seen, but if I did see one I am sure it would look just like my nippy little French friend. Eyes darting hither and thither, taking in the requirements of each diner; weaving about among the tables and customers, balancing platefuls on everything he had to balance them on; shaking hands with every new entrant, he is a sight to behold. He tells me he loves it. Even David had to leave the bar counter to deliver a few full, or collect a few empty, plates. On one occasion he managed to greet a woman with the usual French kiss on each cheek, whilst clutching a plate of mixed meats in each hand. This amazing performance lasts about an hour, after which it all slows down a bit.

The meal consisted of Max’s original onion soup; a plate of cold meats with a marvellous mustard-flavoured mayonnaise nestling in a lettuce leaf; a luscious lasagna the like of which I have never tasted before; and the previously described apple flan. I just about managed to squeeze in the usual fresh, crisp, bread and some water to go with it.

This afternoon I walked the La Briaude loop. It was very cold, with surprising glimpses of warmth in moments touched by the occasional shaft of direct sun.

Resistance

Last night I watched a beautifully and sensitively filmed and acted DVD. This was ‘Resistance’, directed by Amit Gupta who collaborated in the scriptwriting with Owen Sheers, author of the acclaimed novel.

The theme is based on the fantasy that the Second World War D-Day Landings failed, and Britain was overrun by the Germans. Set in a bleak Welsh valley during the winter of 1944 and spring of 1945, it was a dream for the cameramen. Struggling as I was to get warm in my stone house which lacks central heating, and mindful of the snowbound forest I had just left, the freezing bucolic setting in which the film opened was most appropriate. Their snow, however, was fake.

This was a different kind of resistance than that to which we are accustomed in similarly themed films set in occupied Europe. It is not largely about fighting and espionage, but rather the developing relationships between the besieged women left at home by their menfolk and the struggles of a proud people to resist the genuine help of sensitive soldiers determined to keep the SS out of the valley.

Mainly gently paced, it was nonetheless enthralling. Andrea Riseborogh and Tom Wlaschiha were compelling in the lead roles, and it was fascinating to see the brilliant Michael Sheen in an, albeit minor, straight part in which he was not playing a famous person. I thought the film was stolen by the beautifully ageing actress Sharron Morgan whose expressive face perfectly portrayed her conflicts.

Unusually for me, I watched the whole of the credits and extras, gripped by the haunting music of Lyndon Holland.

More by luck than Judgement, I timed today’s walk to perfection. Turning right at the cemetery, I took the La Briaude loop back into Sigoules. After early rain we were treated to scintillating sparkle by the strong sun.

Swollen streams and ditches; rainwater and melted snow from overflowing fields ran down the rough roads whose pitholes were filled with the ochre liquid.

The roar of one stream which had been almost dry last summer could be heard long before I reached it. A new one flowed past a tree and down its sloping field.

As I approached the village square a car driven by a man using a mobile phone happily mounted the pavement before veering off it, reversing across the road, and vanishing into a driveway.

Rain returned as I inserted my key into the front door. Sunshine and showers was the order of the day.

Lunch at Le Code Bar consisted of two bowls of onion soup such as I have never tasted before; a most unusual ham salad; succulent pork cheeks; then a moist coffee eclair. I’m not sure what cheese the soup contained, but it was one of the type Jackie likes to cook with. The generous thin slice of ham was filled with a creamy pulse salad. The pork was served in a delicious tomato-based sauce with pasta. This was accompanied by a quarter carafe of red wine. Anyone wishing to read about my evening meal will be disappointed. I couldn’t eat one.

The television news was full of items about the problems caused by snow.

The Tempest

13.6.12

My legs this morning took me to Cuneges and back, a feat my hip would not have allowed eighteen months ago. This was a long, hilly, walk, and although the weather was cool and overcast I soon raised a sweat. A couple of years ago I did part of this trip with Chris and Frances and Chris took a stunning landscape photograph of which I would have been proud.

On the approach to Lestignac I passed a bunch of bullocks which quickly lined up alongside their wire fence to watch me go by. I still have a photograph, taken in Cumbria many years ago by my friend Ali, in which I am sitting with a book in the garden, completely oblivious of the string of similarly stationed cattle reading over my shoulders.

Cuneges, a village larger than some, does, I knew, have a bar, but it was closed, so for refreshment I had to make do with the occasional light rain. It is home to a number of artisans, one of whom is a plumber whose services I was unfortunate enough to require at the very beginning of 2009. In December 2008, just a week after completion of my purchase of No. 6 rue Saint Jacques, S.W.France was hit by the greatest storm in living memory. The gales were even worse than those that buffeted the U.K. in October 1987. The consequence was that Maggie had had to telephone me to tell me that my recently acquired house had been flooded. The cellar was full of water and there were several inches of it in the ground floor. Multiple disaster had struck. The gales had thrust water under the French doors at the back, and the local underground stream had strayed into the cellar, completely filling it. Because of a three day power cut across the entire region the auxiliary generator installed for just this eventuality failed to function. The trapdoor into the cellar was swollen and had to be forced, breaking some of the tiles laid over it. To make matters worse the inferior plastic piping distributing water throughout the house had sprung a leak and burst. Now I have a copper system which cost a pretty penny. Maggie and Mike had managed to get emergency help to pump the place out, and obviously I had to come over to organise repair work. The house was freezing, damp, and full of soggy mats and plumbers. I stayed with Maggie and Mike.

Le Code Bar lunch today was kuskus with a delicious ‘three meats’ stew followed by profiteroles accompanied by a glass of red wine. After yesterday’s word play Frederick wanted to know if I was ‘satisfied this summer’.

The sun having slunk away for the day I consoled myself with Flaubert’s sublime prose and began Somerset Maugham’s ‘Catalina’. As usual the skies cleared in the evening.

I watched ‘Frost/Nixon’, an electrifying film about the series of interviews of Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) by David Frost (Michael Sheen) directed by Ron Howard and based on the stage play by Peter Morgan. Taking place in 1977 these led up to the final confrontation, perhaps the most devastating public political admission of my time. This episode finally put paid to Nixon’s hopes of a return to any sort of office, and revived the career that Frost had apparently thrown away by risking all on the project.