Cold Comfort Farm 1995

I caught the film Cold Comfort Farm on cable yesterday and now want to read the book. Always a successful adaptation I think if it makes me go searching for the book!

The film of Cold Comfort Farm is an adaptation of the Stella Gibbons novel from 1932, a parody of the doom and gloom novels of the period (DH Lawrence, Thomas Hardy, Mary Webb and even further back, the Bronte sisters). Gibbons was obviously a fan of Jane Austen, as Flora Poste is an Emma Woodhouse type through and through, and Flora even has a line:

"Well, when I am fifty-three or so I would like to write a novel as good as Persuasion, but with a modern setting of course. For the next thirty years or so I will be collecting material for it. If anyone asks me what I work at, I shall say, 'Collecting material'. No one can object to that. Besides, I shall be."

Starring Kate Beckinsale as Flora Poste (I know...no coincidence that the BBC cast her as Emma in 1996) and an all star supporting cast of Rufus Sewell, Joanna Lumley, Ian McKellen, Eileen Atkins, Stephen Fry, Miriam Margolyes and even an impossibly young looking Rupert Penry-Jones!

Flora is a well-to-do twenty year old London girl who finds herself orphaned and with only a hundred pounds a year to live on. She decides to impose on distant relatives who live on a badly run Sussex farm and who all seem to have deep rooted emotional issues which would have sent me running for the hills! Flora, in her best Emma style, sees the potential in not only the farm, but in each of the inhabitants and proceeds to drag them into the twentieth century all cleaned and polished!

So just make sure you are in the mood for some rather tongue in cheek parody as otherwise the OTT style of this might put you off. And I am a little undecided as to whether I should recommend the book or the film first. I leave it to my readers to decide. In any case enjoy. And watch out for "something nasty in the woodshed"!

I am off to order the book now!

Cheers!

Babe 1995

I have to admit that I thought about the Babe movie for the first time in a long time because of what I was serving for dinner. "Pork is a nice, sweet meat" I heard myself saying to my son. And then I had to revisit what is certainly one of the most charming films ever made.

After winning a piglet in a "guess the weight" contest at the county fair, Babe the pig is brought home by Farmer Hoggett to be raised by a border collie named Fly. He attracts the attention of the farmer by sorting hens by colour, and then herding the sheep by asking them politely to move them out of their pen. The film then follows his career as a sheep-pig and the viewer is left utterly charmed.

Babe: I'm sorry I bit you. Are you alright?
Sheep: Well, I wouldn't call that a bite myself. You got teeth in that floppy mouth of yours or just gums?
[Babe bursts out laughing and so does the other sheep]
Maa the Very Old Ewe: You see, ladies? A heart of gold.

Farmer Haggett and Babe, the sheep-pig

Farmer Hoggett: That'll do, Pig. That'll do.

Babe and Fly

Fly: All right, how did you do it?
Babe: I asked them and they did it. I just asked them nicely.
Fly: We don't ask sheep, dear; we tell them what to do.
Babe: But I did, Mom. They were really friendly.

Babe: Baa-ram-ewe! Baa-ram-ewe! To your breed, your fleece, your clan be true! Sheep be true! Baa-ram-ewe!
Sheep: [finally begins to speak] What - what did you say?

Mice:  Pork is a nice, sweet meat!

If I had words to make a day for you
I'd sing you a morning golden and true
I would make this day last for all time
Then fill the night deep in moonshine

So I recommend that you watch this one again on a day when you need a little ray of sunshine in your life. You don't need a child with you but if there is a little one in the house, I will bet they will curl up to watch this with you, and come to love Babe, the little sheep-pig. By the way, the film is based on a book Babe The Sheep-Pig for anyone who wants to keep the charm going!