The film of the restaurant

Yesterday saw the second haggis of the season, boiled rather than steamed which meant that it was a bit damper than last time, which was good, and served for lunch with mashed potato, swede and gewürztraminer from Waitrose, who have clearly worked out that I am going to buy the stuff from them anyway and give me no discount on my 'My Waitrose' card. On the other hand, I got through the self checkout with just the one assistance from an assistant, the mandatory one to do with my age.

Followed by poacher cheese, matso crackers, pink apple and whte port, this last from Luzo Wine on or around 8th November and which we have only just got around to trying. Rather like a sweet pale sherry, rather good. Perhaps it is a sweet pale sherry but they can't call it that as it does not come from Sherryland. Whatever it is, the Ferreiras have been doing in since 1751 and we read afterwards that it has an 'appealing yellow-straw hue and a fresh but intense aroma, with attractive floral and fruit tones'. I suppose we might have got there under our own steam eventually.

Having done this lot it was clearly time, just to show our age, for a bit of afternoon telly, in the form of the film of the restaurant (see 28th January), freshly wrapped from Amazon and described as the best foreign language film, presumably of the year in which it was made, 1974. And according to Wikipedia it, that is to say 'Amarcord', was the last of Fellini's films which was commercially successful, which may well be so, but it passed me by. To the point where I am not sure that I have ever seen a Fellini film before, in a cinema or anywhere else; clearly a misspent youth.

An odd film, well made and very arty, arty to the point that there is not much narrative or plot and the thing jumps about like nobody's business. On the other hand, not arty to the point that there was much naked flesh on view although there was quite a lot of the wrapped variety. And fetching as a rather sentimental portrait of a small Italian town on the seaside before the second war, in the days of the Fascists and of Mussolini. A wonderful scene involving a ridiculously giant head of the Duce. Another involving the passage of a huge lighted liner at night, the Duce's pride and joy. An odd scene in a building site on the beach, which mainly got me to wondering about foundations. But a good watch and having now read all about it in Wikipedia, we are primed to watch it again.

Or perhaps the next step should be a review of the near contemporary 'The Godfather', the accents from which seem to have informed the dubbing of the present film.