Anthony Galvin

Autumn, Greenwich Park. More pictures on Flickr.

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:05:00 +0000

Autumn, Greenwich Park. More pictures on Flickr.

Le fils de l'épicier (2007) - A short review

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 23:54:00 +0000

Pacing a film seems to be a fading art, a skill whose time has passed, left only to the dedicated craftsmen. Fortunately one such cinematic artisan is Eric Guirado, the director of Le fils de l’épicier (The Grocers Son). The film, beautifully shot by Laurent Brunet, is a gentle tale that combines stunning Hautes-Alpes scenery with the tensions of familial obligation and the decline la belle France.

French cinema seems to be going through particularly nostalgic phase at the moment, and although Guirado’s first ‘fictional’ film showcases the beauty of rural France, with sun drenched valleys and sleepy villages, it doesn’t pull too many punches. There’s an all too direct undercurrent of anger and alienation, not amongst the young urban poor, of the kind explored by Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine, but an older, bitter and subtle disaffection of the those at the end of their youth whose lives are drifting.

There’s a wonderfully naturalistic feel to the film, especially in the performances of the elderly villagers, perhaps aided by the directors long career as a documentary filmmaker. The camera is allowed to linger and pause and the film breathes at a slow pace. Unfortunatley the ending is strangely rushed, and after such a largo rendition the finale seems to tumble slightly out of control towards it’s conclusion. Despite this the film is a beautifully observed piece with some lovely performances. One to watch on a Sunday afternoon, perhaps with a small pastis or two.

Autumn Sky. London Bridge.

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:57:00 +0000

Autumn Sky. London Bridge.

Sunday morning. It’s overcast, but dry. Along the top road...

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:51:00 +0100

Sunday morning. It’s overcast, but dry. Along the top road at Goathurst Common not far from Sevenoaks, there’s a a gentle hum of rollers and turbos whirring as the riders warm up. A long queue of spectators stretches back from the tea hut and the smell of bacon fat mixes with sweat and embrocation. There’s a good crowd lining the upper slopes of Yorks Hill, 707 yards of gradient, for the 114th Catford Hill Climb. The oldest continuing cycle race in the world brings out all types of riders and plenty of supporters to urge, cheer and cajole them up the viscous climb. There’s an average gradient of 12.5% but with a couple of nasty sections of 25%.
More pictures on flickr.

Sunday afternoon. Under the silent gaze of the Thames Barrier...

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 19:19:00 +0100

Sunday afternoon. Under the silent gaze of the Thames Barrier and the few remaining sites that make it possible to avoid describing Greenwich Peninsula as post industrial, dinghy racers make their maneuvers. Greenwich Yacht Club is a hidden gem, tucked away near what is corporately known as the O2. It’s a friendly, welcoming place, with a cracking bar and amazing views, especially on bright autumn days.

It’s also another example of how London and especially SE London is hard to categorise. The mainstream media routinely fail to understand or connect with this part of London. In a couple of years the Olympics will be taking place just over the river from the yacht club. The rowing and sailing events will be taking place a long way from the east of London (at Windsor and the Solent). It probably wouldn’t be possible to hold all of the Olympic events on this stretch of the Thames - but I’m sure some of the events could take place within the M25.

More pics on flickr.

Red Kite, Brecon Beacons National Park

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 21:30:00 +0100

Red Kite, Brecon Beacons National Park

sunset and summer drawing to a close

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:17:00 +0100

sunset and summer drawing to a close

Like most people I’d really like a classic VW camper for...

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:12:00 +0100

Like most people I’d really like a classic VW camper for surf trips / weekend breaks / cycling / chasing the tour de france.

And then I saw this.

(picture by Johnnyh on flickr)

Pictures from stage 18, the time trial at Annecy.

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 17:26:00 +0100

Pictures from stage 18, the time trial at Annecy.

Pictures from stage 17 at the top of the Col de la Colombiere.

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 17:25:00 +0100

Pictures from stage 17 at the top of the Col de la Colombiere.

Pictures from stage 16 at Pre Saint Didier.

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 17:24:00 +0100

Pictures from stage 16 at Pre Saint Didier.

Pictures from stage 15 as Le Tour climbs up to Verbier.

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:12:00 +0100

Pictures from stage 15 as Le Tour climbs up to Verbier.

Chapeau! New post on Soho Breakfast phto blog.

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 22:53:00 +0100

Chapeau! New post on Soho Breakfast phto blog.

Ryan's Daughter (1970) - a short review

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:37:00 +0100

A critical failure on it’s release in 1970, David Lean’s follow up to Lawrence of Arabia is an unusual and beguiling film. Robert Bolt’s screen play reworks Madame Bovary to occupied Ireland in 1916. The star studded cast includes Robert Mitchum, Trevor Howard and John Mills. Sarah Miles is the ‘daughter’ of the films title, the emotional heart of the film as Rosy Ryan/Emma Bovary. However, it’s the scenery and dramatic west of Ireland coastline that dominates the film.

Shot on Super Panavision 70, by Lean’s cinematographer Freddie Young, the rugged coastline of the Dingle Peninsula is both beautiful and sinister. More than just a backdrop, the coves, castles and storms play an important narrative role in the film. The vast beach at Inch (now one of Ireland’s leading surf spots) is the setting for many of the films most important scenes. The film was nominated for 4 academy awards, winning 2 Oscars for John Mills, Best Supporting Actor and Freddie Young, Best Cinematography. If the Oscars had a category for best supporting scenery then the film would easily have won another.

Whilst the plot centers around the relationships between the Rosy and her lovers, the emotional heart of the film is the relationship between Miles’ character and reality. Her perception of love and life are so at odds with the day to day reality of living in a poverty stricken village that she exists in a parallel dream world, only occasionally visiting the mundane struggle of daily existence. Sarah Miles’ portrayal of this vibrant yet troubled and dislocated woman is excellent, her vivacity smashing onto the rocks of Mithcum’s taciturn school teacher who, although initially seems emotionally literate, sinks into a sullen silence in the face of his wife’s infidelities.

The film was much criticised on it’s release and seen by various interested parties as a critique of the Easter rising and the church’s dominant role Ireland. However, to read the film in this way is surely to see this subtle and complex film as a simple piece of agit-prop. Such a view also underestimates Lean as a film maker who makes great use of the location and cast. Audience attitudes to Ireland and the central characters have changed considerably in the 30 years since the film was made, in some ways this highlights the strengths of the film rather than undermine it.

Dustanburgh Castle, more pics on Flickr.

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:50:00 +0100

Dustanburgh Castle, more pics on Flickr.

Head in the cloud

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:25:00 +0100

This post originally appeared on the Altogether Digital blog.

Last year at the conference I was fortunate enough to catch Simon Wardley’s excellent presentation on open source and ‘cloud computing’. It was interesting and engaging, but didn’t really seem to be something that the technical team at Altogether could really utilise - the projects we were working on didn’t appear to need ‘the cloud’.

A few months later, and although the sun is shining on Great Portland Street we are happily working ‘under a cloud’.The concept of cloud computing has been around for a while and there’s plenty of definitions and not a little controversy about whether some of the larger cloud players are really providing a silver lining. I don’t think the team here at Altogether is that hung up on a formal definition of ‘the cloud’, we just like effective solutions that work for our clients. However, as a broad definition: Cloud computing is a way of virtualising data in order to provide a specific performance benefit. The performance benefit may be the ability to provide a rapidly scalable hosting environment or fast access to rich content using edge served data.

Earlier this month Ciaran blogged about how Altogether were working with Kleenex to produce a Twitter based hayfever map of the UK. What he didn’t mention was that as the campaign progressed it was picked up by the press and traffic to the site started to increase pretty rapidly. In order to keep up with the demand for the service we simply moved some of the data storage out into the cloud, in this case Amazon’s S3 service. In Amazon’s words S3 provides “a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web”. Or in our words, the site stays up and performs well.

Whilst the hayfever sufferers have been keeping a sore eye on Twitter, we’ve also been working with Vertu on their new global website. The site has lots of content including rich video and some hefty photography, all delivered in 7 languages. There’s a lot of data flying around. To improve the performance of the site we’ve been working with Akamai who provide ‘edge serving’ technology, which is basically a way of putting the content nearer to the customer - in Akamai’s case on 48,000 servers in 70 countries.

In both cases there’s some pretty geeky stuff happening, which to some people is pretty exciting in itself, but what’s more important is that we have another tool in our digital armoury that ensures the solutions we deliver for clients stay online and perform well, whatever the weather.

Film binge - the menu

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:03:00 +0100

Looks like I’m about to start on a small film binge over the next few months. Here’s what I’ve queued up:

Aaltra (2004)
Man on Wire (2008)
My Winnipeg (2008)
Ryan’s Daughter (1970)
Saint Etienne - Finisterre (2005)
Uzak (2002)
Belleville Rendez-vous (2003)
Bicycle Thieves (1948)
Big Wednesday (1978)
Helvetica (2006)
Jules Et Jim (1961)
Subway (1975)
The Endless Summer (1964)
The Getaway (1972)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
Wild Strawberries (1957)
An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
Beckett On Film (2004 - 4 discs, 19 films)
Blindness (2008)
South (1919)
The Lost Weekend (1945)
The Grocer’s Son (2009)
Breaking Away (1979)
Gerry (2002)
Hell on Wheels (2006)
Looking for Eric (2009)

Lifes a beach. 1800 miles of driving, lots of walking, some...

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 23:06:00 +0100

Lifes a beach. 1800 miles of driving, lots of walking, some cycling and one haggis. More pictures from Harris and Lewis on Flickr.

Economic Analysis In 140 Characters

Wed, 13 May 2009 10:59:00 +0100

This post originally appeared on the Altogether Digital blog.

The economy is in crisis and the government announces its latest budget in an attempt to try and dig the country out of the deep economic hole that it is currently in. Whichever side of the political divide you’re on this is clearly serious stuff.

I’m certainly no economist, so last night I tuned into Channel4 news for some serious analysis of what’s going on. There was a panel of experts and politicians from across the spectrum discussing the political and economic fallout from the budget. Mid-debate something strange happens; Jon Snow interrupts and they cut over to Krishnan Guru-Murthy who’s sat in front of a PC reading out detailed economic analysis (in 140 characters or fewer) from random people on Twitter.

Now these people aren’t actually random. They’ve tagged their tweets with #c4budget, as @krishgm has asked them to do throughout the day. But I don’t know who they are and have no idea whether they know any more about the economics than Vince Cable or Mickey Mouse.

I’m a big fan of Twitter, it’s brilliant for lot’s of things but detailed economic analysis isn’t really it’s strength. But it’s easy to see the attraction for the ITN news team, who produce Channel4 news:

They don’t have to send someone into the street to get the usual vapid one liners from people stood at a bus stop (which was how the 10 o’clock news on BBC1 gathered public reaction).
It makes them look like they’ve got a finger on the pulse of the electorate and shows that they are technologically innovative.
It’s cheap TV.

However, there’s a bigger issue here. I’m watching Channel4 news because it can do something that I can’t: get leading politicians and experts in a room and hold a debate on the budget. Searching twitter for #budget is something I can do in a matter of seconds. We don’t really need to have a publicly owned (and theoretically public service) TV station paying someone to read out tweets on air. It’s a bit like getting Simon Schama to Google the year Henry VIII was born.

But of course with media companies around the globe struggling to find new business models that will continue pay for all of these annoyingly expensive journalists, this could well be a depressing foretaste of what’s to come.

Photo

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:01:00 +0100