Film Diary: What's Up Doc?: (Peter Bogdanovich, 1972)

Take some Top Secret documents, a fortune in diamonds, some rock samples (not diamonds), a headstrong and resourceful young woman and a scatty professor. Throw in four identical tartan holdalls and you have the oldest formula of them all for a farcical romantic comedy. It might have been trite, but Peter Bogdanovich has a way of paying homage to old silent films while adding something fresh to the mix. Fresh, that is, for 1972, but that by comparison with today was an age of innocence. It's hard to see anybody getting away with What's Up Doc in our hard-bitten market-oriented times, but this was as delightful as it was when I first saw it in my first term as a student. Bogdanovich even manages to get Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal to pay tribute to Humphrey Bogart and Dooley Wilson on the roof of a San Francisco skyscraper. I'd forgotten about that, for some reason. Lovely stuff, anyway, and very funny.

Other films I have seen recently, but not journalled so far:

Chinatown: (Roman Polanski, 1974)
Attempts to recreate the film noir of the 1940 seldom succeed - as witness the execrable remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice with Jessica Lange and Jack Nicholson. Jack Nicholson stars in this one too, but it works a treat - largely, I think, because Polanski takes on the genre with real affection and respect.

Duck Soup: (Leo McCarey, 1933)
Nothing I can say about this one-off classic would be original, so I won't say anything except that I loved it the umpteenth time every bit as much as I loved it the first time.


La Règle du Jeu: (Jean Renoir, 1939)
A combination of gentle farce and an incisive critique of the morality of bourgeois French society in the years before the Second World War. It's one of those films often cited as one of the best ever, and although it's beautifully filmed and eminently watchable, and the French style knocks spots of Hollywood, but I can't help feeling Les Enfants du Paradis did more for me.

Local Food and other things

Oh what a wonderful thing it is to go for a swim between courses of Sunday dinner! And even better to come back to freshly-backed gooseberry pie and ice cream!

NB: You'll get your own back in a few weeeks when the equinoctial gales come roaring in off the Atlantic and the winter rain sets in...

Anyway, I wanted to comment on using local produce. There were always going to be things I'd miss coming up here - there's no Polish deli to be had and although the vegetables in my box are excellent, there isn't the range of different veg that could be had from Riverford's farm network down in Deb'n. That's not surprising, as you see very land around here under crops, but a lot of hill pasture and coastal marshes. And thank goodness for that, you may say - that's what makes this corner of England special.

There's lots of sheep too. I'm looking forward to some Herdwick hogget from the hills come the winter, but it's the ones that graze on the marshes that are special. Down South, saltmarsh lamb is a rare find and costs a fortune from specialist butchers like David Lidgate in Holland Park, as most of the lamb reared on the saltmarshes of Kent and Sussex goes to France, where they appreciate such things, and barbecue it en camion by the side of the road. Up here there's lots of saltmarsh lamb to be had, and I got a half shoulder to try.

I roasted it plain and dished it up with new potatoes and cauliflower from the Howbarrow veg box, and to make it a bit different I made a gravy with kriek beer, drinking the rest of the kriek with the meal. It was delicious - the lamb is definitely special.

It's swings and roundabouts, of course. What you lose in vegetable variety and Farmhouse Cheddar you gain in the special lamb, proper Cumberland sausage and ubiquitous Lancashire cheese, sharp, salty and crumbly. It will be a sad day when the megacorporations ensure that you get exactly the same thing everywhere you travel. Vive la difference!