Whimsical Musings of a Loon

Photography is one of my passions, and today whilst on a long walk with the dog up Caerphilly Mountain, I stopped at a style that overlooked Cardiff and wished I could master capturing the view. For years I have tried, and I have never quite achieved to replicate the oddly part-picturesque-part-M4-induced-city-scape exactly how I wanted. I will continue to try every time I trample past, but it did make me ponder over what was my actual favourite image of all time. Growing up, it was press images of sporting moments that captured beautifully split-second action, that got me fascinated photography. The images, perhaps, of Wales scoring a try in a rare victory - they were such exciting photographs -  the excitement in the players' eyes, the mud, the emotion, the faces of the crowds; you could sit and pour over the image and live it for much longer than you could watching the replay endlessly on TV. As I studied photography more, I saw the power this medium had for lettin...

At a late night post-rugby celebrational conversation on Saturday night mulling over "what is your favourite symphony", it occurred to me that chosing favourites when it comes to music, film, literature, art and culture is indeed, a troublesome task that can cause a lot of in-house conflict. Deciding on our favourites, our lists of what we consider the best or most enjoyable, seems for so many to define who we are. Author Nick Hornby wrote a book dealing with this very theme; High Fidelity , a tale of man's obsession with lists and favourites. Essentially, it is trivial. Who cares if we rank Neighbours above Emmerdale , or Quincy above Columbo (even if it is true...) but at the same time, it is always enjoyable sifting through the options. For me, it is akin to solving a crossword puzzle - works the brain, the outcome isn't important, but if you love these things, it is deliciously satisfying to complete. One area I often ponder is on the subje...

I often say sometimes I love a song so much it's probably illegal, and very often I love a book so much it makes my heart want to crumple into pieces so devastatingly, I feel I might cease to be. Of course the melodramatic in me often gets carried away, but the overall sentiment is true. The Talented Mr Ripley is such a book that has that kind of beautiful effect of satisfaction, a bit like wolfing down a chocolate bar when you have not eaten all day; a delight and warming satisfaction rolled into one. Written by Patricia Highsmith in 1955, The Talented Mr Ripley was the first Highsmith novel to feature Tom Ripley, a troubled protagonist Highsmith would go on to write five novels about. A psychological crime thriller, Highsmith writes the book from the perspective of Ripley, a struggling sociopath; a New York misfit small-time con-man, whom aspires to so much more than his dreary existence. From the dirty, mundane streets of New York city, Highsmith takes the reader to the slee...

The BBC have recently produced an interesting documentary about Alfred Hitchcock , concentrating specifically on the English director's early pre-Hollywood works. Presented and directed by the comedian Paul Merton, it includes archive interviews with Hitch and present interviews with those who worked with him. Merton even copies the Master himself and puts himself into the archive footage, for his own little cameos. It's worth watching to see how Hitchcock was ahead of his time with his early films, which crossed the silent-film to talkie evolution, and how a lot of his cinematic techniques that we take for granted, were in fact pioneering. The first Hitchcock film I saw was Psycho . I was about 14 or so, and saw it on TV, not really knowing what to expect, probably a little skeptical that this old, black and white film would probably just be rubbish. Because, well, it was old and black and white. How wrong I was. Just from the opening titles and music I was freaked and yet str...