A few months ago I watched the ABCs War on Waste. Twice actually. I've always been careful with recycling, trying to be responsible, but this three part series was eye opening in so many ways. Seemingly simple objects such as bananas are subject to so many rules. The supermarkets have strict size and shape guidelines to make our bananas uniform. The most common banana, the Cavendish, can't be too straight, while the Lady Fingers can't be too bendy. Neither can be too long, or too short. Of course bananas don't know this and many bananas are rejected, and never sold by the growers resulting in literal banana mountains of waste.
It was completely shocking to me to see teenage girls who only wear clothing once! Who do they think they are? They are certainly not Kardashians. It is difficult I guess where weekly magazines will often ridicule, or at least point out, when celebrities wear the same piece of clothing more than once. It never occurred to me though that "regular" people would take that on though. The real game changer for me though was the notion of soft plastic recycling. I'd never really heard of this before. I knew that you could take supermarket plastic bags back to special bins at the supermarket for recycling, and did that when I needed to, but I had no idea that Coles particularly was running a scheme called Redcycle. It's fantastic and a great way to keep soft plastics out of our oceans, rivers and landfill. Soft plastics are most dangerous to marine life, a floating piece of glad wrap or plastic bag looks just like a jelly blubber and lots of animal species will try to eat it. My Coles supermarket had a nondescript green bin, which now post War on Waste has a new sticker proclaiming the full purpose.
I've taken to soft plastic recycling with such gusto, it's pretty much become a new hobby. Of course it is more important to try and avoid plastic use in the first place, rather than just recycle. The plastic we recycle is sent to China by boat, at tremendous cost, and incredible use of resources. War on Waste is still available on iView until 18 Jan 2018.
I love watching something interesting when I do the ironing. Often it's the French News, other times I watch something I've taped from the tv. Generally documentary or something light, I prefer to enjoy fiction when I have the opportunity to sit on the couch and fully enjoy it. Last night I watched Banksy Does New York. I quite like Banksy. I like his artistic style, his incorporation of the site he uses and signs or objects already present, I generally like his political messages, and I like his humour. He has a great twitter feed. I am astonished that he has maintained his anonymity in the modern world. That must be incredibly difficult to do. I've watched other documentaries on Banksy before, but recently came across Banksy Does New York on ABC 2. In October 2013 Banksy did a month long residency in New York, and created a new art work every day. He would put clues up on his twitter account each day and New York would go out looking for it. Of course word would spread like wildfire on social media and crowds of people would go Banksy hunting. One of the commentators called it the first hipster scavenger hunt which is possibly rather true. The response of the established art world and art journalism was especially interesting (yes they completely ignored the art taking the city by storm for a month). Apparently you can be a Banksy hunter. I was hoping to see one when I went to London in 2013 but it wasn't to be. And if the folks in London act at all like the people in New York then I see why. Often these works were painted over within hours, or defaced by jealous and stupid "graffiti artists", or removed so that they could be sold. A Banksy art work is often a fleeting experience. Banksy Does New York was fascinating, it made the ironing fly by. It's about art, politics, history, animal rights, philanthropy, greed, urban decay and renewal, even Nazis. Life really. In Australia it's available on ABC iView until Aug 20.
I was particularly excited last year when news broke that there would be a new series of the Gilmore Girls. I'd always loved Lorelei and Rory's super fast talking banter. But I'd never watched all of it. I knew I'd seen most of the first few series but was pretty sure I hadn't seen all seven series. I have a DVD set of Series 1, and had started that a few times but never really got to the end of it. Enter Netflix and the era of binge watching. Not that I have a lot of time for binge watching. Two maybe three episodes is a binge for me. But late last year Master Wicker and I started on the quest of watching all seven series of the original Gilmore Girls so that we could watch the four new episodes. I'm so glad we did. Yes, it's taken quite a while. But there are 22 episodes every series. 22. For seven series. 154 episodes. Those Girls did a lot of machine gun talking. It's funny. It shows a mother and daughter can get along (generally). And it's kind at it's core. I realise now that I was most familiar with series 1-4. Which is not surprising. I'm not a great series fan. I don't generally like endless series of the same show as generally they will run out of ideas rather soon. The Simpsons is a rather obvious exception to this rule. I don't like reading book series either. I thought it all lost a bit of direction in series five when there were quite a number of story lines that I found annoying. Look away right now if you don't want to know - the whole Emily and Richard situation, Lane and Zach- really?? Really? Although there was a whole episode devoted to Pippi Longstocking and that's just great. But there were some particularly excellent lines in Series 6. Episode 1 Emily to Rory: There's plenty of time for sleeping in when you've gone up a few dress sizes. And Episode 21 of Series 6 was a cracker episode- perhaps one of my favourites! Liz: I'm going to do all the things I didn't do last time I was pregnant, like not binge drink. Richard - I'm sitting in one of South Dakota's finest hotels. It smells like a foot. I did find some of the toing and froing of the last few seasons a bit tedious. Will they? Won't they? It all flip flopped a few too many times. And the four new episodes? Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. Most of it was good, and it was nice to see the characters again. I thought Summer was totally bonkers, and was worried it had all lost it's way. It didn't get tied up in the way I expected, but I'm glad to have watched them, and glad to know what the long anticipated final four words were (but no spoilers here, but I'm not about to spill).
I'm pretty terrible at taping things and then not watching them, filling up my hard drive recorder. I always mean to watch them soon. But sometimes I eventually get to watching things while working through the ironing pile. Today I watched Lenny Henry: Finding Shakespeare. I didn't really know anything about this documentary and I think it was at least a year ago that I taped it. Lenny Henry is famous to me for being a comedian and previously married to Dawn French. I hadn't realised that in more recent times he had become a Shakespearian actor. This was somewhat surprising to Lenny himself too.
It's incredible that I'm doing this play because for most of my life I've kept well away from Shakespeare. Like many of us I thought I wasn't clever enough to understand it.
Finding Shakespeare was filmed in the leadup to a worldwide broadcast of The Comedy of Errors with Lenny in the lead role. Lenny shows us his childhood home and talks about his Jamaican working class roots.
"Shakespeare's nothing to do with us is it?"
Which is a very familiar feeling for many of us I think. He describes his school experience of reading Romeo and Juliet as "a whole class of disinterested kids reading from this old, tattered book". Which is very much like my remembrance of Henry IV Part One.
But where does this mental block about Shakespeare come from? And what are missing out on if we don't get past it?
the iambic pentameter, although it's poetry, is based on the heartbeat
Wow. Really? There's just so much I don't know about poetry.
But today his 400 year old language stops most of us being able to relate to his work.
Lenny later visits rapper Akala who "believes we can still connect with Shakespeare if we can just get over the fear of the language." Akala has even founded the Hip-Hop Shakespeare Theatre Company. He plays a great game of quotes called "Hip Hop or Shakespeare?" I still don't feel clever enough to understand Shakespeare most of the time. I'm still working on it though. I do try and go to a Bell Shakespeare production each year. I saw Othello last year, and was completely shocked by it. Angered. And saddened. It's still very relevant. Jackie French has a new series that she's doing with Shakespeare retellings. I read I am Juliet back in 2015 (see my review) and have more sitting in the TBR. You can watch Lenny Henry: Finding Shakespeare on Vimeo if you need to get your ironing done too.
Recently I got to watch Matilda & Me again, a fabulous documentary that I taped back in April 2016 I think. It's still languishing on my hard drive and I watched it again recently to make the ironing tolerable one night. Matilda & Me is the rather incredible story of how Tim Minchin came to write the musical Matilda, and was filmed in the lead up to the Australian opening of Matilda. Matilda & Me was made by Tim's youngest sister Nel and it also is a chronicling of Tim's own story- starting with his childhood in Western Australia. He was the second of four children.
"As a little kid I was very fat, but I also had allergies and terrible asthma and I was deaf as a post. Mum thought there was something wrong with me I think. "
He was a musical kid, in a musical family. They all put on family concerts frequently. Tim didn't do piano lessons after the age of 12, but always playing.
"It's not practice, it's curiosity"
He still always wants to be the best at everything.
"I'm 40 and I practice handstands"
Tim Minchin had an early love of Roald Dahl and remembers receiving The BFG one Christmas as a child, and that his sister got Matilda. At 25 he actually approached the Roald Dahl Estate asking to be able to write a musical based on Matilda. He backed away when they asked for a sample of his score as he couldn't read or write music! Tim then kept working at his craft, progressing to his comedic act. He came to notice after performing at Edinburgh in 2005. So much so that in 2008 the Royal Shakespeare Company approached him to compose the musical Matilda. And history was made.
"Matilda the musical absolutely is a reflection of my obsession with putting lots and lots of words into a short space of time in order to criticise everyone"
Matilda is such a fabulous show, which I was lucky enough to see it in Sydney and Melbourne in the past year or so. Matilda & Me documents the rehearsals prior to the Australian opening.
"Almost certainly the biggest child role that exists and the most sophisticated"
There's a great series of Behind the Scenes Extras available on youtube. In Episode 1 it's fascinating to watch the four young Matildas as they rehearse and do boxing training in preparation for their roles.
Episode 2 is a great mini documentary on Roald Dahl, his writing practice and his life.
I'm really not sure why I've become so interested in Fashion in recent times. Or even fashion documentaries. It's not my world. Although perhaps that's part of the attraction. I taped Mademoiselle C a few months ago, and recently got to watch it on an exciting Saturday night at home. I'd never heard of Carine Roitfeld before. She was born in Paris to wealthy parents. She was editor of French Vogue for 10 years from 2001 to 2011. After she left she set up her own magazine CR Fashion Book in New York. Mademoiselle C documents the process leading up to the launch of the first edition. It's a fascinating glimpse into the world of fashion, celebrity and money. Helicopters and private ballet lessons- she is mighty impressive actually, this grandmother is very flexible. It never ceases to amaze me that the behind the scenes fashion types generally wear black all the time. And they never change their hairstyle from one decade to the next. They're very much a do what I say not do what I do group of people. A visual bonus for any fashion doco that has anything to do with France are the obligatory glimpses of Paris during Fashion Week - Palais Garner, Grand Palais and the Colonne Vendome. A month after CR Fashion Book launched in 2012 Carine Roitfeld accepted a position as Global Fashion Director for Harpers Bazaar. She still publishes CR Fashion Book twice a year as her own "personal laboratory of ideas".
Karl Lagerfeld is in it a lot
they collaborate quite a bit
Some interesting Carine Roitfeld links CNN Observer "I’d used the same perfume for 20 years, so just for me to change that was very difficult." Maybe this really is a French thing. Those gals in How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are (see my review) advised us not to change our perfume for 30 years. Carine Roitfeld was to launch a range of seven perfumes in 2016 but I can't find that it exists yet. FT
Dreaming of France is a wonderful Monday meme from Paulita at An Accidental Blog
For the Love of Meat aired on Australian TV a few months ago, and it's taken me that long to work up the courage to actually watch it. It's a three part documentary made by Matthew Evans- chef, food critic and free range pig farmer. I'm glad that I finally did. And I'm particularly glad that I started watching it on a accidental vegetarian day. Naturally it's often confronting, but it's fascinating, and it's important. Matthew was astonished to learn that while people eat 34kg of meat per year on average world wide, here in Australia we manage to eat our way through 90kg of meat per person per year, making us the second biggest meat eaters in the world (behind America). In that 90kg we eat 7kg of lamb, 20kg of pork, 23kg of beef and a whopping 43kg of chicken each. I was surprised that the proportion of lamb was so small, although I guess lamb is most often cooked at home, and doesn't make up a large proportion of fast food meals in the way that chicken and beef does. I can't imagine that I eat my 90kg average, but they're still sobering numbers. Matthew uses the three episodes to look at the animals that we eat the most of - chickens, pigs and cows. Episode 1 deals with chickens. I learnt a lot of things. Meat chickens aren't housed in cages like laying chickens. 85% of the chickens we eat in Australia live in a space no bigger than an A4 sheet of paper. The average time from egg to slaughter is 35 days, and remarkably this time has almost halved in the past 40 years with increasingly intensive practices. I was most distressed to learn that these chickens are often only given 4 hours of darkness a day, so that they eat and grow for 20 hours a day. Matthew was never allowed access to an intensive chicken farm. Only 1% of the chicken sold in Australia is organic. Episode 2 is about pigs and pork. Again I learnt a lot of things. Only 10% of our pork is free range. Pigs build nests! Free range pigs sounds great but apparently mother pigs squash 18-20% of their piglets in the wild. Which is why industrialised pig farms have farrowing crates that constrain the mother from moving while she is breastfeeding her piglets, and still with this 10% of piglets are crushed by their mother. Australia has already banned the use of sow stalls and these are being phased out by the end of 2017, while farrowing crates are "the next controversy in the pig industry". Farrowing crates prioritises the life of the piglet (and the interests of the pig farmer) over the freedom of the sow. Sows are in traditional farrowing crates for 3-4 weeks, and they do this 2.2 times per year. Farrowing crates have already been banned in parts of Europe, and the Danes have invented a convertible farrowing stall which limits the sows for the first three days when the piglets are most vulnerable to being crushed, and then gives the mother freedom to move after that. Pigs are 18-24 weeks old when they go to market. It would be great for consumers to be told on packaging if the pork they are buying was raised in ecosheds or in conventional sheds- they certainly looked vastly different experiences for the pigs. Episode 3 deals with cattle. Half of Australia's beef cattle are in Queensland and 300,000 hectares of land was cleared last year for the cattle industry- an astonishing 40 football fields an hour. Cows of course are mobile green house gas factories, and there was an interesting comparison on the amount of gas released for different foods. Lentils produce 1kg of greenhouse gases per kg of lentils Chickens produce 3kg of greenhouse gases per kg of chicken Pigs produce 6kg of greenhouse gases per kg of pork Cattle produce 25 kg of greenhouse gases per kg of beef The CSIRO in Townsville is doing some amazing research about seaweed/algae supplements for cattle that could reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 80% Matthew feels that we are disconnected from the meat we eat, and that certainly is true. For the Love of Meat was mainly about animal welfare for me, although it also dealt with some areas of health and environmental concerns. It's no surprise that Matthew ended up advising us that we could all eat less meat, and as the second biggest consumers of meat in the world this is obviously true. I live with a vegetarian so I have already been eating less meat much of the time, and I ended up eat no meat on the two days that I watched For the Love of Meat. When picking my lunch the day after watching the chicken episode choosing a chicken sandwich that I was reasonably sure would contain low welfare chicken just didn't seem right- do I want to eat chickens that have been forced to eat and grow for 20 hours a day? Do I want to eat chickens that live out their life in a space less than an A4 piece of paper? No, no I don't. Do I think these practices should even be allowed in Australia? No, no I don't.
I was really surprised how much I enjoyed this recent 4 part ABC series based on Christos Tsiolkas's book of the same name. Stories about competitive swimming, or any sport actually, aren't usually my thing, and so I'd avoided the book when I probably should have trusted Christos more, he's an excellent story teller and an astute observer of society and character. I've only read one of Christos' books previously- probably his most famous book, The Slap, (read my review). I didn't manage to get through watching the miniseries of that one though, my interest petered out, and I just stopped. Not so with Barracuda- it is fabulous viewing. I was literally on the edge of my seat at times. It has it all really. Class, family, teenage emotions, sport, competition. Barracuda is the story of Danny Kelly, a young boy from a working class family in Northern Melbourne. Danny is plucked from obscurity and the Coburg Pool by the swimming coach at an exclusive private school, and his life is changed forever. Set in the 1990s in the hey day of Kieren Perkins and Daniel Kowalski (even I know who they are), it was fun watching people use CDs and non cordless phones. But it's the story that is the real star here. It's gripping and full of emotion. My library has an e-audiobook of Barracuda available, and if I can ever work out how to use that service I think I'd like to listen to it now. Wow, it's 30 hours! Well 29h 59m, perhaps I'm slightly exaggerating. And somehow an e-audiobook can be "on loan" and not available until a certain date. Curiouser and curiouser. I enjoyed this fascinating RN interview with Christos Tsiolkas about Barracuda. Christos tells us that after the huge success of The Slap that he thought a lot about success and failure, and how success in sports is quantifiable, whereas success in the arts may not be readily quantifiable. He thought that Barracuda was about "how to be a good man", and forgiveness. Which is interesting, I didn't quite get that from the TV series, but then a 4 hour miniseries is never going to cover as much as a book where the audio version extends to 30 hours. I think I'm going to have to listen.
I can't really remember watching a French TV series before. Movies, yes of course. I've meant to watch a few series, but never got to doing it until recently when I accidentally stumbled across a great series called Paris on SBS when my mother alerted me to a listing in the TV guide that just said Paris. Naturally that was enough for me to set the hard drive recording just to see what it was. Paris is a new six part series, a French political thriller from the team behind Spiral- writer Virginie Brac and director Gilles Bannier. I heard of crime drama Spiral too late, and haven't been able to find it yet, but now will have to track it down somehow. Paris shows gives us a plot of intersecting lives over one day in that most beautiful of cities. 1 City. 1 Day. 12 Destinies. With great range of French characters covering every strata of society- the Prime Minister, a bus driver on the edge, a pregnant maid, a transgender nightclub singer, crooked judges who drink too much. There are stray guns, union politics and lots of secrets. Naturally within ten minutes there is talk of a strike and a large political controversy.
And there is a lot of Paris scenery, sometimes incorporated into the story. Characters take the Metro, they take the bus.
They walk down the street.
Or peer out of taxi windows.
And is this what happens behind all those grand doors? Liveried guards saluting the Prime Minister each time he walks past?
I stayed near the 7th in 2013
and walked past many such entrances
I was intrigued then, even more so now
Sometimes just Paris for the sake of Paris. Brief glimpses of Paris porn.
It would be interesting enough set in Sydney or London or any other world city, but it's set in Paris and the six episodes just fly by. It's on SBS On Demand. I've already watched it twice. Oooh, and Spiral Season 1 is on SBS On Demand! Happy Days.
Dreaming of France is a wonderful Monday meme from Paulita at An Accidental Blog
Master Wicker and I have recently finished up watching the first series of Cleverman. It's not really my usual fare I guess, but I really enjoyed it. There have been a number of recent TV shows with great roles for Aboriginal actors, and encompassing Aboriginal stories. Cleverman takes that one step further and is firmly based in Aboriginal mythology. Set in a futuristic, but rather familiar Australia, Cleverman deals with prejudice, race and identity with some rather exciting supernatural and fantastic elements thrown in. Anyone even vaguely familiar with Australian history and politics will recognise themes of dispossession, race, asylum seekers and border protection.
Cleverman was written by Ryan Griffen because he saw the need for more Aboriginal superheroes. Griffen grew up with comic book heroes and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and he was naturally introducing his own son to the same characters. It was while playing dress-ups with his 3 year old Koen one afternoon that Griffen realised he wanted to share a culturally significant superhero with his son. It's no coincidence then that Cleverman's name is Koen, or that the real Koen can now play Cleverman in his room (although I guess he probably hasn't watched the whole series, there's a few too many adult concepts in there). JJJ ran a series of the fantastic Dreaming short stories that inspired the script are read by the Cleverman actors. An impressive 80% of the cast and directors are indigenous Australians. Cleverman is an Australia/New Zealand coproduction, and involved the iconic Weta Workshop. I missed Redfern Now a few years ago, although have long been meaning to seek it out. But recently I've enjoyed Glitch and Ready for This, and I'm eagerly awaiting the movie adaptation of Jasper Jones later in the year. The second series of Cleverman will be released in 2017. I'll be watching. Compass had a fascinating Cleverman Special discussing the mythology and story behind Cleverman.
I want to Reconsider My Life. I guess I'm in the pre contemplation stage. I've read lots of articles about Japanese sensation Marie Kondo and her methods of transforming lives. Of course I've even bought her book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, but naturally I haven't read it yet. Recently I watched an interesting Finnish documentary called My Stuff. 26 year old Petri Luukkainen is single and lives in Helsinki. He's been dissatisfied with his life for a while.
My stuff has begun to define who I am.
My flat is all full now, yet I'm empty inside.
So he sets up a rather intriguing experiment. Petri puts literally all of his stuff in a self storage unit and allows himself to get one item a day.
I'm rebelling against my stuff.
In what seems a rather Scandinavian approach he starts off naked in his apartment, which is now completely empty, and he has to do a nude run through a Helsinki winter night to get a single coat.
It's certainly not how I'd structure things, but it's interesting to watch someone else do it. I don't want to butter my bread with my finger, or use the same finger to clean my teeth.
I need room to think why I'm not happy.
Initially Petri's quality of life goes through the roof each and every day with each retrieved item. But very quickly Petri isn't getting something every day from the storage unit.
7 things is plenty. I won't take anything.
He didn't go to the storage for 10 days! But then makes a big grab including his bike. Petri has a lovely relationship with his grandmother who he goes to for advice. She is quite old, old enough to be considering her mortality, and that the things that will inevitably be all left behind. She's sweet, and gently supportive.
The advantages of living in a climate that provides an external fridge
Rather astonishingly it is 51 days before he picks up his laptop, but he still doesn't have a phone, and his friends start to push back about how he can't organise social outings without a phone. One of the most surprising, and yet obvious things for me when Petri was thinking about his possessions:
A table needs a chair.
That's rather philosophical really and taking things back to basics. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that Petri comes to realise that "Your life is not made of your things". He does eventually pick up his phone, and in the end decides that he can manage with 100 things, but needs another 100 things for comfort and joy.
My Stuff is available at SBS On Demand. (I can't be sure whether this link will work outside Australia)
The Wicker family have just finished watching the original Danish/Swedish drama series The Bridge. I didn't know all that much about it before we started. The boys had watched it while I was away in Europe, and wanted to join in watching it with me on my return. I'm glad they did. It's 10 hours well spent, and nice to watch something as a family. The extraordinary success of The Bridge has been much copied- there has been an English/French The Tunnel, and American/Mexican The Bridge.
I don't get to watch all that much TV these days but do enjoy the occasional whodunnit, but without all the slick and gloss of CSI or NCIS. The Bridge is a perfect gritty crime drama. Be warned it's not for the faint hearted at times.
A body is found on the amazing Oresund Bridge between Copenhagen and Malmo in Sweden. Police from both Denmark and Sweden investigate the case, and so we have the intriguing Saga Noren from Malmo working alongside Martin Rohde from Copenhagen. As a non-Scandinavian viewer I'm sure we miss many of the nuances- it isn't always obvious if they're in Malmo or in Copenhagen, and the two languages sound rather similar to our ears. The subtitles force active engagement from all in the room- no watching tv while using iPad or laptop at the same time.
The Bridge was written as a tv show by Hans Rosenfeldt in 2006 when he was given the mission of creating a thriller set equally in Sweden and Denmark. It's a fascinating glimpse to a part of the world I've never been. The Bridge is possibly not the best tourist advertisement for Copenhagen (there's no Princess Mary, no palaces, no blue sky), or Malmo (not even a hint of a Eurovision final), but you can now do a Bridge tour in Copenhagen. Perhaps one day, if I can ever stop going to Paris, maybe I'll go to Copenhagen and cross the bridge to Malmo.
This 2 part BBC documentary has been on our screens before I think, but I'd missed it. Thankfully it was repeated last month.
Beautifully shot, Wild France is stunning to watch.
Although some of the cinematography is a bit annoying. But there are some very cool shots.
It seem French birds don't like being sniffed
by somewhat crazed French men
can't say I blame them
I haven't seen a lot of wild France, unless you count Paris during the Sales. I've tried to find the birds of Paris, but have never seen bears or deer or other incredible wild sights in France. There's just so much to look forward to with every visit.
Dreaming of France is a wonderful Monday meme from Paulita at An Accidental Blog
I'd never heard of Monty Don before this delightful series started playing on our ABC recently. Monty is a BBC gardening presenter who lived in France for 6 months as a young man, and has loved France ever since. Monty has a respectable handle on the French language, and seems to have mastered French scarf tying. He tootles about France in a 2CV in this lovely 3 part series.
Ignore the surprisingly annoying Canadian
voiceover
Episode one, Gardens of Power and Passion, reminds us that those powerful human emotions of passion, power, ambition and disgrace can achieve many things, even making gardens.
Monty visits several of the spectacularly grand classic French gardens to show us how gardens can be displays of wealth,power and position. One of the classic chateaux of the Loire Valley, Chenonceau was built by Henri II and given to his mistress Diane de Poitiers. When people saw the garden they didn't just admire the garden, they admired her.
The Monty takes us to the stunning Chateau Vaux le Vicomte. A 17th century masterpiece by the famed landscape architect, Andre Le Notre who used 18,000 men to work on the garden, creating engineering feats- diverting rivers and building gravity fed fountains. Louis XIV was so annoyed that Nicolas Fouquet had a better garden than him that he arrested him. Louis XIV was of course to use Le Notre's considerable talents to create the ultimate in grand French gardens- Versailles, where no amount of excess was too much- new plants would be put in overnight so the king could wake to a new garden.
Monty visits other classic French gardens including Napoleon's residence Malmaison. Josephine was apparently obsessed with roses, she was Europe's first collector of roses, and Napoleon instructed his generals to bring back plants from their theatres of war. Apparently a rose is often the first flower that the French will put in their gardens. Monty also visits some more modern gardens including a rooftop garden at the flagship Hermes store in Paris. Paris has twice the population density of London, yet she never ceases to surprise and delight us!
Episode 2, The Gourmet Garden, explores the history and the art of the potager, the French kitchen garden. Potagers show us man's control of nature and food production, and highlights the French love of order and control. Monty believes this tradition started with medieval monasteries.
A third of French people still buy their produce from their wonderful open air markets, and a half of French people buy local produce. Importantly, the French spend more time eating and drinking than anyone else in the western world.Monty's choice of a 2CV takes on more significance as he tells us it was designed before the war to transport a farmer and their produce to market, without damaging the produce.
Monty explores the notion of terroir- that mystical combination of soil, climate and place developed and beloved by the French, which is at the heart of the French relationship to their food. Monty visits several potagers, from simple to unbelievably grand.
The extraordinary Chateau Villandry in the Loire Valley has the most famous potager in the world. Each year they raise 70,000 plants, and also buy about the same number. Sadly it's now all decorative, the food is grown to be viewed, not to be eaten. They do harvest the peppers and eggplants and give them to visitors. Incredibly the vast majority ends up on the compost heap. Which is such a dreadful waste. Monty bemoans that function and form have grown too far apart.
At Versailles the Potager du Roi is just as extravagant. And why not? Certainly the king should have had the best potager. It currently employs 10 permanent gardeners. It shows us a great demonstration of elaborate pruning favoured by the French, their espaliered trees. Understandably secateurs were a French invention.
"Each tree has to be understood."
Some of the fruit trees at Versailles date from the late18th century. Unlike Villandry, Versailles is a working garden, and harvested produce is sold at the garden gate.
Monty visits a Jardin Ouvrier (workers garden) in a poor area of Paris, an allotment style garden where the unemployed or retired can grow food for their own tables and appreciates the benign easy generosity of those who work allotments. Vegetables are grown separately from flowers.
Paysan, is an honourable state in France. Peasant culture was simply living off the land, that still remains something that the French practice and respect. All their food culture stems from the fact that you grow your food on the patch of land you have.
Monty tours regional France and shows us fascinating sights like onions growing in terraces of the Cevennes, looking more like rice paddies.
and how to harvest white asparagus in the Dordogne.
Episode 3, The Artistic Garden, shows us the gardens of great French artists and gardens considered as works of art themselves. Paris has always attracted artists and intellectuals- perhaps this explains my Parisian attraction?
Of course he starts with Cezanne and Monet those most famous of French impressionist painters "attempting to capture the essence of a single moment in their canvases". Monty visits the Orangerie initially to see his large panels hung there, before heading to the most famous of artistic gardens at Giverny. I hadn't heard before that Monet worked on a number of canvases simultaneously, moving around the garden as the light changed.
Monty is moved to grand thoughts in Cezanne's gardens in Aix-en- Provence.
For me a garden is home, it's life, childhood memories, dreams all bound up- you can't separate it.
He loves seeing the light and hearing the sounds as Cezanne would have heard them. He then takes us to France's first cubist garden. Monty then explores some modern concepts in art gardens- vertical gardens, using plants as living sculpture, or reinventing the elements of a traditional French formal garden for an elegant effect. It's a lovely exploration of gardens and art.
Monty Don's French Gardens is perfect for those of us Dreaming of France-whether you've been to France, and have been lucky enough to visit some of these beautiful places, or are daydreaming of a first trip to France.
Dreaming of France is a wonderful Monday meme from Paulita at An Accidental Blog
I don't get the chance to watch a lot of tv. I haven't seen a single episode of Downton Abbey or The Wire. I saw the first two or three episodes of Breaking Bad, but then missed some and never caught up. I think Broadchurch was on mid last year, when the family were lolling about in France, priorities you know. For some reason this show particularly appealed even though I didn't get to see any of it, or really know what it was about. I bought the DVD last year as soon as it was available.
This past weekend Mr Wicker and I caught up with it. I put the first episode in the player on a bit of a whim three days ago, when I was at a rare loose end. We watched the first two episodes that day. The following day we watched another two episodes. By this stage we were fully hooked. Today we watched the remaining four episodes in a bit of a Broadchurch marathon. Rather unprecedented activity in the Wicker household.
I didn't know too much about it when we started watching, and I'm certainly not going to spoil anything for you here. I knew it was a BBC murder mystery, and that the rather dishy David Tennant was a policeman investigating the murder. But that's about it. Sadly, David's character is somewhat troubled, and he doesn't look at his best here, but he does at least get to use his lovely Scottish accent, rather than the middle English voice needed for Dr Who.
The entire cast is particularly strong, with an impressive number of Dr Who alumni, including both lead actors. David Tennant of course. Olivia Colman appeared in the first episode with Matt Smith, The Eleventh Hour. Arthur Darvill (once Rory, and now local priest Paul Coates), and David Bradley who played William Hartnell in the wonderful An Adventure in Space and Time, as well as appearing in the Dr Who episode Dinosaurs on a Spaceship. It was nice to see Pauline Quirke again too after so long. Fascinating to learn that she got to act with her own dog.
1 minute trailer does give a little bit away
best not to see it really if you haven't seen the show
While I had some rather minor misgivings about the production at times, it did an incredibly good job of making you suspect everyone in town, and keeping you guessing as to who really was to blame. I thoroughly enjoyed my 8 hours in Broadchurch and will look forward to season 2 that is being made this year.
Rather distressingly I see that the Americans are making an American version called Gracepoint. Now why do they have to do that when this is so brilliant? Although David Tennant reassures us that it will be different- he is again playing the lead investigator in this new version! I wonder if he'll get to use his Scottish accent for an American audience- I suspect not. And our Jacki Weaver will play the role that Pauline Quirke played in the BBC original. Will she have her Aussie accent? Again I suspect not.
