But never mind, this was a happy week and I will endeavor not to grow ill watching the endless replays of Beckham's penalty goal. Or the Concorde flying past Buckingham Palace. Or Allison leaving the Big Brother house (thank God!). But my favourite moment of the week was Graham Norton interviewing Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, who were even more hilarious than they are in their own unbelievably infectious TV series. Ozzy's limited range of adjectives and befuddled facial expressions mask a surprisingly knowing entertainer. And his glary performance during the Jubilee concert easily stole the show from the more established likes of Paul McCartney, Elton John, Brian Wilson, Cliff Richard and Phil Collins. I mean honestly, it was no contest.
The short work week meant only two film screenings, both fairly painful. One was a worthy Nicolas Cage World War II drama. Thankfully it wasn't Captain Correlli: The Early Years. Rather, it was set in the Pacific front, and it failed simply because its director was hopelessly miscast. The other film was Part 10 in the Friday the 13th saga, which I thought ended with "Part 3-D" in 1982. Where have I been? At least Part 10 is hilariously kitsch, keeping us film critics giggling for 90 minutes, which is more than can be said about last week's National Lampoon "comedy," which was met with stony silence and a few loud tuts.
Outside the screening room, the weather has been even more terrible than usual. But I say that every year. The slanting rain on Wednesday and Thursday would have been hopelessly depressing on any other days of the year, but sandwiched between the Jubilee and England v Argentina, no one seemed to mind. It does make me wonder, though, if this will be another of those summers in which we never get a decent run of sunshine. I'm trying not to be pessimistic, but I'm starting to linger over the newspaper travel sections more intensely than usual.
It's early June and I notice the tourists are starting to flow into London. This is marked mostly by clean-cut Americans looking lost as they group in Underground entrances, blocking the flow of traffic to confer in loud voices about where to go to get the Tube from "Lie-cester" Square to "Convent" Garden, while I resist the urge to shout that they could get their more quickly by walking down the street. Meanwhile designer-clad Asians stop for no apparent reason at the bottoms of escalators, causing a human-body pile-up and not noticing a thing. OK, so maybe it's summer in London after all. And maybe I'll stick around for another week.
This week's screenings...
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