celticman's blog

Rick Rien (a pseudonym) sent me a copy of his book, Viva Nothing . The title comes from a virtual race. He fancied the name, placed a bet, and won. Usually, he loses. It’s in the title. Rick’s addiction is gambling. Most of us know someone that is addicted to something. ‘Some of my best mates are drunk drivers,’ is a line I used in one of my longer stories, Ugly Puggly. Smoking and drinking used to be the big-hitters. Drugs (legal, illegal or...

Rosie (2021) BBC3, BBCiPlayer, Script by Roddie Doyle, Director Paddy Breathnach. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p09lk76z/rosie Roddy Doyle makes you smile. You just need to think of that line from The Commitments , ‘We are the black men of…’ whatever it was. I’m never that grand at remembering. He wrote about the housing crisis in Dublin. But they can’t be that bad that Conor McGregor threatens to lead a posse of Irishmen to deal with...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001sg02/words-on-bathroom-walls https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001sg02#credits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_on_Bathroom_Walls Words on Bathroom Walls was a 2020 release and mainstream movie. It had a budget of over $9 million. Yet it only took around a third of that at the Box Office. If it looks like a turkey and sounds like a turkey… But it’d be a mistake to think that. Some movies like Pretty...

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/ben-hur-2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben-Hur_(2016_film) I was flicking through the channels. I couldn’t understand why they were putting Ben-Hur on in a premium time slot. I’d fond memories of Ben-Hur, being generally a sucker for Biblical epics when I was a kid in the La Scala. The type where Jesus’s shadow touches Victor Mature’s face in The Robe . I can’t really remember what happened next. No doubt...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001swt5/three-faces https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001swt5#credits This is one of those films I watched which I didn’t really enjoy. For some reason I believed it would be cartoonish. I was thinking of something or somebody else. But it was a conventional film. I’m not sure certain why it was called Three Faces? Perhaps three faces of Iran (I’m not sure what they are either). I’ll do what I usually do...

Write what you know. Megan Nolan writes about Waterford, where she was brought up. And London where she moved to. But it’s London 1990. Nolan would be a toddler. A child has been reported missing and later found dead. ‘Down below in Skyler Square the trouble was passing quickly from door to door, mothers telling mothers, not speaking aloud but somehow saying : baby gone, bad man, wild animal. ’ James Bulger 1993 is the classic case. But google...

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/utama/on-demand/75755-001 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utama Virgino (José Calcina) gets up early to tend his llamas in Altiplano, the arid high plateau of the Andes with its mixture of cold and heat. His wife Sisa (Luisa Quispe) takes two metal buckets and walks into town for water. But the annual monsoon didn’t come. It hasn’t rained for a year. The weather is sick, says one of the villagers. Virgino is...

bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0gnmkvz/scrublands-series-1-episode-1?seriesId=p0gnmk66 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0gnmlbt/scrublands-series-1-episo... https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0gnmm2g/scrublands-series-1-episo... https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0gnmmcc/scrublands-series-1-episo... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrublands_(novel) Scrublands begins with a bang. Literally. Father Byron Swift (Jay Ryan) after mass at St...

I’ve read a few Alan Parks's novels. Don’t ask me which ones. I thought To Die in June had won the McIlvanney Prize, but it was his last Detective Harry McCoy novel. I’m a book or two behind. I continually use the same line when talking about McIlvanney’s Detective Laidlaw series; his aim wasn’t to solve the crime but to solve the world. Detective Harry McCoy is from the same mould. ‘Wisdom comes through suffering.’ Aeschylus. I’m all for wisdom...

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/la-civil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_civil How much is your daughter worth? El Puma (Juan Daniel García Treviño) gives Ciero (Arcelia Ramírez) a price she must pay to see her daughter again. To keep her alive. He also demands her ex-husband’s truck. The smiling assassin and his companion assure her it’s just business. And she’d not to contact the police, because obviously in Northern Mexico they’re on the...