Choice is good apparently, it’s what is drummed into us the whole time. Well when it comes to clothes, there is a real beauty in simplicity and forcing yourself to reduce your choice.

This simplicity when done well is based on knowledge, craft, style, confidence. It can manifest itself in many forms but I think we should start saluting those who keep it simple, know what they like and buy a lot of it.

‘Most of these recipes are enough for two. I know this is slightly unusual, but I am certain that more people eat this sort of food in twos than in fours’

There’s a truth in the opening words of Nigel Slaters ‘Real Fast Food’ that disrupts the status quo of cookbooks and the way recipes are almost always written – for four people

Why do we hang on to this idea that four people is the norm in a household? it almost definitely isn’t. Is there some uncomfortable truth about our nation not being street after street of happy families or gently enjoyable dinner parties? Maybe it’s just a hangover from the Elizabeth David / Delia era – who knows.

The high street is a strange beast, it evokes so much emotion that the thought of the end of it frightens the crap out of people. Obviously, none of us, even the journo who wrote those words actually knows what they mean by it – afterall, there will always be a street and as long as people live on that street they will need to buy stuff.

I’ve been as hypocritical as the next man over the past few years – often deriding the failures of said brand as I walk past the sad looking windows yet when I walk past again and realise it’s shut for good and in it’s place is an empty shop floor and a new ‘retail opportunity’ i miss the brand. That is the beauty and the great problem of ‘the high street’, most of us want it there for aesthetic and emotional reasons, rarely for functional ones.

Once upon a time, keeping up with popular culture so you were able to chip into the odd conversation or nod knowingly down the pub was a piece of cake. Watch top of the pops, film 98 with barry norman and keep an eye out for what the cool kid at school who’d just been to florida on a family holiday brought back.

It’s a whole different ballgame now, we all know that, but one thing that continues to baffle me is the number of ridiculously high quality dvd box sets that hit the market – you only have to walk one aisle of hmv to see mad men, the killing, the sopranos, the wire all staring at you. It’s starting to get to me, how can I keep up and stay on top of so much brilliant output? It feels as though I can’t – 24 alone will set you back a couple of weeks and by the time you’ve done that HBO will have probably knocked out another three series that the will no doubt be ’seminal’ according to every broadsheet worth reading.

I don’t think I’m the only one though, I’ve heard a few of my mates this year announce that one their things they must do this year is watch a dvd box set that they feel guilty they haven’t yet seen – the whole thing has become part involvement in culture, part achievement in itself.

So how to not get down about it? how to make the whole thing seem manageable? i’ve got no idea – to find out if any of these are worth watching, you’ve actually got to, um, watch them. ahhhhhhhh!

c/o David Hepworth

industry scaremongering about the death of cinema gets tackled in the guardian with a healthy dose of common sense.

“Let’s get something straight: nothing can compete with cinema, and nothing ever will. Audience numbers and box-office takings will always fluctuate. But suggesting that downloading can ever provide an alternative to cinema is like saying that fast-food chains will kill off restaurants. The experiences are not comparable. It may take people a while to realise that – they may dip a toe in the studios’ on-demand scheme – but they will soon come to miss the largeness, the inclusivity and the sense of occasion that comes from going to the cinema. When you watch a film on a television or a laptop or, God forbid, an iPod, you haven’t seen it as it was intended. Sometimes it’s the only option available, especially with old or obscure movies now that the repertory scene is in permanent decline and the double bill has all but died out.

But the idea that audiences for blockbusters are going to spurn the excitement of experiencing at maximum size, say, the latest Pirates of the Caribbean release, or whatever floats your schooner, is ridiculous. Most will know almost without realising it that there is no alternative to the communal, immersive alchemy of cinema-going. Nothing trumps it.”

Great quote from this Francis Ford Coppola interview

When you make a movie, always try to discover what the theme of the movie is in one or two words. Every time I made a film, I always knew what I thought the theme was, the core, in one word. In “The Godfather,” it was succession. In “The Conversation,” it was privacy. In “Apocalypse,” it was morality.

The reason it’s important to have this is because most of the time what a director really does is make decisions. All day long: Do you want it to be long hair or short hair? Do you want a dress or pants? Do you want a beard or no beard? There are many times when you don’t know the answer. Knowing what the theme is always helps you.
I remember in “The Conversation,” they brought all these coats to me, and they said: Do you want him to look like a detective, Humphrey Bogart? Do you want him to look like a blah blah blah. I didn’t know, and said the theme is ‘privacy’ and chose the plastic coat you could see through. So knowing the theme helps you make a decision when you’re not sure which way to go.