The Ancient Greek play Oedipus Rex featured Jocasta: a woman who liked being a wife and mother, until she found out that she was the wife and mother to the same person. I probably should have been suspicious when the latest movie at the Spanish Film Festival (The Projectionist) began with a quote from the…
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May
On the afternoon I arrived in Buenos Aires for the seventh time, someone asked me if I planned to drive there. I said, ‘I’ve never driven on the right hand side of the road, and I don’t think central Buenos Aires is a good place to start.’ Wearing seat belts, stopping at red lights, using…
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Apr
… is to see them all. Which is what I intend to do at the 2019 Spanish Film Festival. After 30 movies in 14 days in 2015, this year it shouldn’t be too difficult to watch 31 in 22. There are actually 32 films, but I saw Crime Wave, starring Maribel Verdú (pictured in the…
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Apr
It was at Iguazu Falls. Sadly, the humidly meant this wasn’t an effective way of drying my shirt. This was how I’d got it wet in the first place: A worthwhile trade-off, methinks.
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Apr
I originally went to the Perth Stamp & Coin Show today because my friend Ian Boulton is running it, and I thought it’d be good to see and support him. I expected to pop in, say hello, have a quick look round, then leave. But then I encountered this perspex of Diana, which I thought…
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Mar
Before the Kardashians… … there was Noelene. ‘Sylvania Waters’ was the first Australian reality TV show in Australia, before they even called it reality TV. It centred around the real-life Noelene Baker (later Donaher) and her real-life family, except her daughter, who pulled out at the last minute and was never spoken of. Noelene lived…
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Mar
When I first went to Argentina, Nestor Kirchner, the governor of an obscure Patagonian province, was running for president. He only got twenty-two per cent of the vote in the first round, but when his main rival pulled out, it was enough to slip into the job. The Kirchners spent the next twelve and a…
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Mar
In 2013, some friends in Hull, Yorkshire, took me to the Ferens Art Gallery to show me a Constable painting, but I was more intrigued but what was beyond this sign. There was a screen split into quarters, with each segment showing a different person vomiting. Martin Creed’s works push the boundaries as to what…
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Mar
