Last of the Summer Wine Goes Birding became Railway Film Club again today as it was very cold and we are wimps.
We watched some interesting documentaries and newsreels on steam railways followed by
The Crimson Wing, the feature film on the life-cycle of flamingos in Africa. I had seen this on the big screen but my birding tutor hadn't and I quickly realised that he wasn't going to enjoy the voice-over which, now I listen again I realise is load of pseudo-poetic waffle which rarely tells you what you are actually looking at. It almost never identifies any other species for example, which may make it a pleasant art film but is frustrating in a documentary. Perhaps this was compensated for by the stunning visuals when I saw it at the cinema but it was painfully obvious, despite a good quality recording, that Mariella Frostrup was not winning any friends. Much of the photography is stunning though.
After I had handed over the kitchen to my friend to create some of his excellent cheese toasties we returned to watch
The Prince and the Showgirl as both of us had recently seen the film about its creation and the famously difficult time director Lawrence Olivier had with its star Marilyn Monroe. Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed this and putting the detail from
the previous film into this new context. There was much that was clunky, from the "exterior shots" which were a mixture of found footage and obvious studio sets to the wandering accent of Sybil Thorndyke but for me it all added up to a charm that belies the misery of making it which put Olivier off directing for years and was part of the tragic downward spiral of its star to an untimely death five years later.
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| My Week With Marilyn (Image via RottenTomatoes.com) |
It is a piece of fluff with outrageous scenery chewing and preposterous accents but it is still a delightful confection and when we can't see the endless re-takes and are not aware of Monroe's reported inability to remember lines, she illuminates the screen in a way that makes you understand the legend where still photographs sometimes fail. She seems brimming with life. Both a joy and simultaneously very sad, it renewed my respect for the makers of My Week with Marilyn as well, since the recreated scenes were very accurate and Branagh's Olivier very close. Nothing much on the subject from my companion afterwards, although we had watched it at his request. I was beginning to think I was giving him a very dull day although he did find some amusement in La Thorndyke's accent wandering from the Balkans to somewhere more tartan-clad - "You'll have had yer tea?"
To round this Film Club meeting off, my friend produced a railway DVD he had found in a 99p bin somewhere and unfortunately it became apparent that it had been somewhat overpriced. There were four films on the disk but they seemed to share a lot of clips and photos. For the most part there was no narration and they consisted mainly of amateur footage taken from midland station platforms with amateur video cameras complete with overwhelming wind noise. This was preferable to the "music" which had been overdubbed on a lot of it, which seemed to consist of someone playing...or possible just pressing a switch...on some kind of cheap Casio synthesiser. Actually there seemed to be a lot of interesting stuff (for railway buffs) in the visuals but in the absence of any kind of commentary for most of it, it really needed the sound turned off completely and perhaps something relaxing in the way of genuine music put on the stereo system. I was mesmerised by a succession of historic diesels in action but my friend cracked and gave up on it. What with the toasties, Marilyn and some very pretty flamingos I had actually had a good time but my fellow Railway Film Club member didn't, I fear.
Thursday games went ahead later.
ProfMudlark had radiator trouble and didn't come at all, while Crabro and MaOldie stopped by to offer assistance to the Prof and were late. Petra Pan and mrwendell were unusually early for them but owing to a long chat about films, streaming and games consoles in the kitchen over tea, we failed to complete our preparations to play a Mystery Rummy game (Jack the Ripper) before the other two arrived.
After abandoning the original idea of playing La Citta because we didn't remember the rules and no-one could be bothered to read them all again (it was that kind of evening) we ventured into the hobbies room to scan the shelves for something we knew well enough to play without homework.
We settled on a game we all like:
Hamburgum. This has recently been available from The Works at £7.99 which is an absolute bargain for such a lovely game. Arguably, we would say, the best of all the bargain strategy games that have been available from that outlet in the last few months.
For your money you get a double-sided board, very nice pieces including tiny timber, bricks and bells and chunkier than usual cubes representing goods. My copy has English on one side and German on the other although both maps vary the gameplay and aren't simple alternatives. We decided to play Hamburgum rather than Londinium and although this meant using the side printed in German it really isn't a big problem and any difficulty can be quickly resolved by using the double-sided player aid to translate. This is a Max Gerdts game and so is governed by his favourite mechanism the rondel.
I find this an easy and satisfying mechanism which is up there with "worker placement" as one of my favourite types of game. I also own Gerdts's Machu Picchu which has its rondel disguised as a map of the ancient city but, with similarly nice wooden components and that mechanism at heart is another favourite. He likes to include material on the actual history behind the games which is a nice bonus.
Despite my love of the game, and this type of game, I made a complete pig's ear of playing it on this occasion and came dead last. mrwendell claimed a convincing win over a slightly disgruntled but magnanimous Crabro who was kicking himself for wrongly reading the requirements for finishing a cathedral build. He had worked out that he didn't have quite enough money at that point but realised belatedly that he could have finished a cathedral, and the game, a turn earlier. Still that is board gaming. If I hadn't made certain blunders I might have won and we could probably all say the same. mrwendell was a worthy winner and we can all now congratulate ourselves on having an excellent game in our respective collections.
Overhead a peregrine was hunting and as we got down to "The Scrape" near the coast I was able to see lots of my favourite bird: oystercatchers. In this same area was also the first avocet I have seen this year as well as teal, Canada geese etc. Amongst others, in the morning we also saw dunnock, robin, reed bunting, skylark, pintail, meadow pipit, dunlin, black-headed gull, great and lesser black-backed gull (conveniently close for a good comparison) and wigeon. One of my companions also saw a greenfinch which I'm afraid I missed.
After lunch we set off to nearby Eastbourne to find Shinewater Park where a bittern had been reported. As it was by now a warm, bright, sunny day we had no great expectations of seeing this shy bird. Usually it is best to stake out a healthy reed-bed at twilight and spot them flying in. It is extremely difficult to see them normally once they are within the reeds as they are well-camouflaged.
Sure enough it was easily visible and quite clear at the edge of some reeds even through the binoculars. The 'scope gave unprecedented views though and somehow it seemed wrong to watch so easily a bird I have previously strained to see on a freezing crepuscular vigil.
