Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri

We saw this film in the back row of the very cosy, Minema screen at the Curzon Bloomsbury. This is now my smallest auditorium I have ever been in with only 30 seats. One large screen though. Another first was sitting in a sofa seat.
The film, bloody excellent with such strong central performances from the cast and not surprising that Frances McDormand got the BAFTA. Although Sally Hawkins from Shape of Water must have pushed her hard.
Also the director Martin McDonagh, from Camberwell, London deserves praise too, also director of one of my other favourite films In Bruges.

Two mentions to the soundtack, The Felice Brother's Radio Song has an extensive play during a bar scene early on yet fails to make the official soundtrack. Somewhat strange as other than three other songs the rest are hardly heard. One of the others is the closing song, Buckskin Stallion Blues sung by Amy Annelle and worth further exploration.

So what is the better film, Three Billboards or Shape of Water?
Its a close run thing but Shape of Water gets it by a nose simply because of its scope of imagination. Otherwise they are as good as each other.

STOP BREXIT

Will put out a hi res image if I can lay my hands on to share.

Dr. John Cooper Clarke @ O2 Academy, Cowley Road, Oxford

Some two and a half years after seeing the good doctor at EOTR which due to the rammed full big tent and heat I had to leave after two poems and some banter, finally managed to see a full set.
All seated, downstairs of around 500 middle aged patrons, and not the young crowd that JCC refereed to half way through the set. Maybe it was his dark glasses. And a full 75 minutes long.
His usual scatter gun approach to poetry with words coming out of his mouth at a rate of knots. How does he remember them all.
Well sometimes he didn't, other times reading from his own note books which were stacked up beside him on stage.
Some of the banter went on a bit in a ramble, some bordering into northern club comedian territory, or was that irony.
Anyway, a good laugh all round and listening to the various comments overheard as we emerged into the Cowley Road afterwards, much enjoyed by everybody.

Three poems are memourable, evidently Chickentown, Beasley Street and the updated, Beasley Boulevard.
 And here they are, and reading them through they are special.

EVIDENTLY CHICKENTOWN

The fucking cops are fucking keen

To fucking keep it fucking clean

The fucking chief’s a fucking swine

Who fucking draws a fucking line

At fucking fun and fucking games

The fucking kids he fucking blames

Are nowehere to be fucking found

Anywhere in Chickentown

The fucking scene is fucking sad

The fucking news is fucking bad

The fucking weed is fucking turf

The fucking speed is fucking surf

The fucking folks are fucking daft

Don’t make me fucking laugh

It fucking hurts to look around

Everywhere in Chickentown

The fucking train is fucking late

You fucking wait you fucking wait

You’re fucking lost and fucking found

Stuck in fucking Chickentown

The fucking view is fucking vile

For fucking miles and fucking miles

The fucking babies fucking cry

The fucking flowers fucking die

The fucking food is fucking muck

The fucking drains are fucking fucked

The colour scheme is fucking brown

Everywhere in Chickentown

The fucking pubs are fucking dull

The fucking clubs are fucking full

Of fucking girls and fucking guys

With fucking murder in Their eyes

A fucking bloke is fucking stabbed

Waiting for a fucking cab

You fucking stay at fucking home

The fucking neighbors fucking moan

Keep The fucking racket down

This is fucking Chickentown

The fucking train is fucking late

You fucking wait you fucking wait

You’re fucking lost and fucking found

Stuck in fucking Chickentown

The fucking pies are fucking old

The fucking chips are fucking cold

The fucking beer is fucking flat

The fucking flats have fucking rats

The fucking clocks are fucking wrong

The fucking days are fucking long

It fucking gets you fucking down

Evidently Chickentown


BEASLEY STREET

Far from crazy pavements -
The taste of silver spoons
A clinical arrangement
On a dirty afternoon
Where the fecal germs of Mr Freud
Are rendered obsolete
The legal term is null and void
In the case of Beasley Street

In the cheap seats where murder breeds
Somebody is out of breath
Sleep is a luxury they don't need
- a sneak preview of death
Belladonna is your flower
Manslaughter your meat
Spend a year in a couple of hours
On the edge of Beasley Street

Where the action isn't
That's where it is
State your position
Vacancies exist
In an X-certificate exercise
Ex-servicemen excrete
Keith Joseph smiles and a baby dies
In a box on Beasley Street

From the boarding houses and the bedsits
Full of accidents and fleas
Somebody gets it
Where the missing persons freeze
Wearing dead men's overcoats
You can't see their feet
A riff joint shuts - opens up
Right down on Beasley Street

Cars collide, colours clash
Disaster movie stuff
For a man with a Fu Manchu moustache
Revenge is not enough
There's a dead canary on a swivel seat
There's a rainbow in the road
Meanwhile on Beasley Street
Silence is the code

Hot beneath the collar
An inspector calls
Where the perishing stink of squalor
Impregnates the walls
The rats have all got rickets
They spit through broken teeth
The name of the game is not cricket
Caught out on Beasley Street

The hipster and his hired hat
Drive a borrowed car
Yellow socks and a pink cravat
Nothing La-di-dah
OAP, mother to be
Watch the three-piece suite
When shit-stoppered drains
And crocodile skis
Are seen on Beasley Street

The kingdom of the blind
A one-eyed man is king
Beauty problems are redefined
The doorbells do not ring
A lightbulb bursts like a blister
The only form of heat
Here a fellow sells his sister
Down the river on Beasley Street

The boys are on the wagon
The girls are on the shelf
Their common problem is
That they're not someone else
The dirt blows out
The dust blows in
You can't keep it neat
It's a fully furnished dustbin,
Sixteen Beasley Street

Vince the ageing savage
Betrays no kind of life
But the smell of yesterday's cabbage
And the ghost of last year's wife
Through a constant haze
Of deodorant sprays
He says retreat
Alsations dog the dirty days
Down the middle of Beasley Street

People turn to poison
Quick as lager turns to piss
Sweethearts are physically sick
Every time they kiss.
It's a sociologist's paradise
Each day repeats
On easy, cheesy, greasy, queasy
Beastly Beasley Street

Eyes dead as vicious fish
Look around for laughs
If I could have just one wish
I would be a photograph
On a permanent Monday morning
Get lost or fall asleep
When the yellow cats are yawning
Around the back of Beasley Street

BEASLEY BOULEVARD

Low-slung shady basement gaffs
Rooms of empty sound
Strip ribbon casements
With venetians halfway down
The Hocksten fin
With a nervous trim
And a fragrant disregard
It's an urban splash-art ghetto gym
Beasley Boulevard

Slates hung glutted and sated
Hunger has no home
Pampered, preened and patinated
In a multi-cultural tone
Looking good but lose the 'hood
Or lose your loyalty card
Here comes the neighbourhood
Beasley Boulevard

Noodle bars and poodle parlours
Studio bronze and ask
A street art tart in slashed pyjamas
And an Alfred E Neuman mask
Anything could happen
But it hardly ever does
There's a pub but the regulars are barred
Nobody there to harsh your buzz
On Beasley Boulevard

The Mall - the Maul - whatever you call it
Serves those glittering hoardes
Split decision spoilt for choice
And, anyway, ignored
You wanna shop where you don't need a cop
And nobody swipes your card
A fair deal and a bit on top it's
Beasley Boulevard

The fat man's grocer
The fop's outfitter
And the drunkard's licensee
And the guy who's giving everyone the jitters
Who's never been on TV.
'Never been on TV,' you say, 'How very avant garde!'
Black and white is pink and grey
Down Beasley Boulevard

A stringent disinfectant
With a most intrusive scent
Wreaking violence on anyone
Of an olfactorial bent
While health and safety
The bete-din
And the guys at Scotland Yard
Keep the area free from sin
Beasley Boulevard

Ring-a-ding-ding regime change
A long way overdue
But the dogs are gone and it's pale and strange
With a whole new kind of you
It's better than Paradise
If you don't look too hard
Made over nice n nice
A B&B you wouldn't be without
The BBC did a DVD about
BB Keys came to see about
BB King did a song in E about
A Garden of Eden in every yard
A phone box cleared of hookers' cards
They've got to promenade
On teasy wheezy easy-peasy

Beasley Boulevard 

The Shape of Water

Valentine's Day
Back row of the cinema.
And a fantastical love story on the screen in front of us.
What a wonderful, extraordinary film.
Could not take my eyes of the screen and although the seats were comfortable and laid back somewhat, I spent most of the film bolt upright.
Guillermo del Toro on form lets hope he gets best director.

I have another favourite film, following on behind his Pan's Labyrinth.

Courtney Marie Andrews @ St Barnabas Church, Oxford.

Just over a year ago I made a note on my phone, Courtney Marie Andrews, Honest Life. Thats all the memo said and so when just before Christmas a friend asked whether I was going to see her in Oxford. Well I wasn't but within an hour of that conversation I was. (also booked to see Nick Cave in Sweden in June at the same time...must have been feeling rather heady.
Looking back at that memo before the gig I tried to remember why I made that note and I genuinely could not recall. However I now know why.
First gig of the new year, and my first ever visit, despite living in Oxford for numerous years, to St Barnabas Church. Well that was one wow factor as we walked in and managed to find some seats just one row back from the front.
Then she came on, I thought she was sixteen singing about the experiences of a woman many years her senior. Great voice, great songs, two standing ovations and now Honest Life purchased.
Need I say more?
Must see her with the full band.