I am having trouble keeping up with blogging, these days. You may think that the third blog doesn’t make things easier, but somehow, Claude’s Daily Snap is hardly any work at all, Mon Daily Quotidien‘s biggest work is recording the French version and that doesn’t take long, the one I have most “trouble” with is Blogging in Paris. Yes, right here!
Anyway, two things I did and enjoyed last week before going to Blois and visiting with my friend Sarah.
My cousins from Evreux, Leo and Chantal suggested going to a play: Le Gardien, Harold Pinter‘s The Caretaker at Théâtre de l’Oeuvre. Somehow, when they choose a show, we always have a good time. And The Caretaker was no exception. A play that I had seen before and that was on the syllabus when I was a student in English literature.. I had forgotten all about it though, but during the play two words that our lecturer had used about the caretaker were ‘snivelling‘ and ‘groveling‘. And even though the play was performed in French, they came back to me. The part of the caretaker was played by eighty-one-year old remarkable French actor, Robert Hirsch, once a star comedian at Comédie Française and who hadn’t appeared on the Paris stage for a very long time.
A great actor and a great performance, which the three of us thoroughly enjoyed.
Catherine and I went to see The Queen, a Stephen Frears movie, which we enjoyed a lot. After a moment’s surprise, when you think: what’s going on here? Helen Mirren doesn’t LOOK like Queen Elizabeth II, neither does Michael Sheen look like Tony Blair, you just forget about it. Helen Mirren IS the Queen and Michael Sheen is Tony Blair. It’s quite a remarkable movie although I bet the Queen herself probably wouldn’t like it 😉 The Internet Movie Database mentions that At the film’s premier at the Venice Film Festival, Helen Mirren’s performance received a 5 minute standing ovation and I think she well deserved it.
Blogging in Paris 
Culture is one of the things I miss living out here in the Scottish wilderness. I’m really looking forward to the 29th when I can get caught up! Paris here I come!
Mirren may well be the century’s greatest English-speaking actress, after all is said and done.
Look forward to having a chance to see this movie. Like Michael Sheen and bet he also does a great job with Mr. Blair’s character.
See…I thought Helen Mirren looked just enough like the Queen for me to enjoy the movie….Sheen on the other hand…well, I kept thinking I was watching Bremner Bird & Fortune.
I’ve just decided that I have to tend to my Netflicks DVD-ordering when movies first come out; otherwise, I don’t remember reviews/comments of them, and forget to order them. This is one of the movies I’ll thus go and put down on my Netflicks queue list right now; thanks for the tip.
The Canadian Mint should’ve modelled the latest twenty-dollar note after Helen Mirren’s Queen, because what they used is quite unflattering: