Critic Cal

There was a time before YouTube – remember? – when people relied on the television for humorous video snippets. And if you wanted to watch one again (and again and again and again) you'd better hope that somebody had set the VCR. Well, my family were utterly entranced by a dog called Domino that said "I want one". He starred in a 1988 episode of the BBC's 'That's Life' and my dad has been doing impressions of him ever since. (In fact, I'm pretty sure we  didn't  catch it on tape – which means we probably only saw the actual footage once; it was dad we had on repeat). Unsurprisingly, by now   it can  be found on  YouTube , comfortably at home alongside a selection of tortuous  wannabes  – talking dogs just aren't what they once were. It's an odd experience watching it for real for the first time in all these years. Like most memories, it's evolved in the retelling; for something so embedded in our family culture it seems strangely ...

The produce of a week or so's worth of rather cathartic evenings back in July...                  To Their Moot Issue                 Had we but world enough, and time,                 This indecision were no crime;                 We would sit down, and think, and weigh                 The pros and cons, our long life's day.                 You'd watch the lads-turned-dads, matchside,                 With wistful awe; I, with...

Having become greedy for  Tolstoy  after a few appetising short stories, but not feeling quite hungry enough to stomach all 560,000 words of  War and Peace , I settled on  Anna Karenina  as a middle course. I'm about halfway through, and there's this scene which nicely sets the, er, scene for my latest attempt at some calendar-specific reflection: Country land-owner Levin is preparing for his long longed-for marriage to Kitty. He has cheerfully parried all of his bachelor friends' jibes about the hindrances and botherments of wives, and, left alone, muses peacefully on his future happiness, until...   'But do I know her ideas, her wishes, her feelings?’ some voice suddenly whispered to him. The smile died away from his face, and he grew thoughtful. And suddenly a strange feeling came upon him. There came over him a dread and doubt—doubt of everything.   ‘What if she does not love me? What if she’s marrying me simply to be married? What if ...

There's something pleasingly 'meta' about the way that  Neil Gaiman  interweaves intriguing fact [1], established myth, wide-ranging allusion [2], and his own ingenious fabrications: the reader is left having 'learned' an awful lot of fascinating stuff which may or may not be 'true', and is forced to confront the generally problematic nature of truth, how to get at it, and when and whether and in what regard it matters. As someone who likes to at least know the origins of the things I think I know, I found my reading of  American Gods  frequently interrupted by the urge to google. But, being as popular and influential as it is, much of the apparently corroborative evidence I turn up turns out to be rooted in the novel as an assumed 'authoritative source' in its own right, so that the internet (and, by extension, humanity...?) simply doesn't 'know' any more whether such-and-such a nugget of information pre-existed or was birthed in Ga...

Picture CC from haily.baily on Flickr Alright, already! Even the confectionary they gave us on the aeroplane to stop our ears from popping as we landed seemed to pester me to let go of my agenda and anxiety and simply trust in God. I wrote some weeks ago about my reluctant agreement to travel to the US to present some work at a conference. I guess I'd be hard-pressed to stir up sympathy for the fact that I 'had' to go on a paid trip to sunny California... Most would be extremely grateful for the chance, but for me, well, 's complicated. I came up with all sorts of strategies to wriggle out of it, but in the end I glumly reconciled myself to the reality that opting to get on and  meet my 'obligation' was the action which, under the circumstances, most demonstrated faith -- in God's protection and provision, in His desire for me to be challenged and transformed, and in His bigger picture which goes way beyond whether or not I'm comfortable or havin...

"I promise that I will do my best To do my duty to God; To serve the Queen, To help other people, And to keep the Brownie Guide Law." We'd chant this soporific, semi-circular in front of a melamine toadstool and a formidable middle-aged woman known only by the misleadingly congenial title of 'Brown Owl'. And then we'd dance around the toadstool, singing a song about the propitious time of day to the tune of Big Ben. And then we'd ceremoniously dismantle the toadstool and return its various parts and accoutrement to the cupboard. And then we'd break out into our sixes: Elves, Sprites, Pixies, Fairies, Imps and -- by far the least attractive or agreeable of the legendary supernatural namesakes, and therefore necessarily the one to which I was assigned -- Gnomes. And then we'd get to work devising desperately futile money-making schemes, all with the stated aim of finally, one day, restoring to its former glory our dear Brownie hut, burnt entire...

I struck the board and cried, "no more; I will abroad..." (George Herbert, The Collar   [1]) Or, in my case, I will not  abroad. Like Herbert, desiring to defy his priestly calling, to escape, to flee the life that God has given him which seems to him too burdensome, too wearisome, I don't want to do it anymore. I don't even know what "it" is -- I'm not a priest, I'm not a missionary, I'm not an anything-in-particular; the Bible tells me I'm "his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" ( Ephesians 2 :10). "Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if you do not give up" ( Galatians 6 :9). Well, I'm weary. I'm not even sure I know what giving up looks like, but I know I want to do it. Part of me resents the strength to carry on, because without it I wouldn't have a choice, and without a choice I wouldn't h...

Steve Carell  established himself in my estimation as among the most virtuosic of all comics with his role as Brick Tamland in Anchorman  -- a film which isn't really a film at all but which makes you seriously question whether you would ever choose to watch a film again were there sufficient like extended assemblages of 'funny' to fill up those time slots in which you would normally be watching films. Sadly, this question is academic, as there aren't. Since Anchorman, Carell has gone on to prove himself equally expert at attaching himself to disappointingly mediocre films  [1]. It recently struck me that were I, as a fan, to wait for a good one to come along, I might be waiting a while. So, I threw caution to the wind and placed £8.50 and 100 minutes on  The Incredible Burt Wonderstone  not being unbearable. The bet paid off -- I was adequately amused throughout, with moments of acute merriment and even the odd burst of mental provocation. One such burs...

Being of an uncertain footing on the levelest and driest of surfaces, the recent wintry outburst marooned me in our house for four days straight, with little but my Bible, my Kindle, several bottles of red wine, and a dangerously diminishing supply of apples, carrots and peanut butter. I was panicked -- not just about how I would sustain myself without said staples, but about the potential repercussions of sustained solitude. It felt like a return to the 'bad old days', when sitting around on my own was my predominant activity, and I was worried that I would quickly re-adapt and would struggle to remember how to be around people once the sun came out and melted my excuse for isolation. The episode was not without its advantages though. For one thing, it gave me a good clear stretch to finish Robinson Crusoe -- a book which, I confess, I was not overly sorry to escape from. Less "rousing testimony to the triumph of human spirit in the face of adversity", more "...