When they were kings...

Shakespeare Wallah (1965)
It is an English movie made in India describing the romance between a daughter of travelling theatre performers and a local boy. It is actually about the family of the Kendals whose members act in this film. Geoffery plays the father, Laura the mother, Felicity as the heroine, Jennifer Kendall is in a minor role as a guest house owner and Shashi Kapoor, their son-in-law (who married Jennifer), as the hero.
It is post colonial India. Some Britishers who stayed back in India start feeling nostalgic about their home. They reminisce the good old bygone days where they were treated as kings in India at the same time long to be in their motherland. In the same manner, the Buckinghams feel that they were wasting their daughter Lizzie's future by keeping her back in India. The theatre company that they run, showing Shakespearean plays, do not garner much support. The silver screen had taken over!
In comes a debonair Indian boy, Sanju, who is intelligent, able to keep her entertained and well conversant in English. They fall in love, so she thinks, until a Bollywood actress, Manjula (Madhur Jafferey) appears in the scene to warn Lizzie to keep her distance.
Sanju brushes the threat, saying that she is just a cousin.
Yo-yo here and there, their relationship sours. Sanju pours his feelings to Lizzie but cannot stomach the idea of his beau being awed by other viewers. The strained relationship ends there with Lizzie leaving to England.
Quite an interesting show set in the cool highlands of India. We have the chance to see a young Sashi Kapoor in a different role than the usual masala flick that we are used to. Madhur Jafferey gives a sterling performance that earned her the Best Actress Award in 1965 Berlin Film Festival. Interestingly, the music score was composed by Satyajit Ray.

Figment of fiction

Anonymous (2011)
One thing laudable about a mature society is the acceptance of alternative versions to the widely accepted version. This is the stark contrast to what is seen in an infantile society where people go up in arms if a little creativity or critical thinking is given to the official version. With things neither black or white in the modern world, they forget that the truth is almost always hidden somewhere between 'the truth' and 'the rumour'. For the longest time, we have been shoved down our throats half truths and lies. Now, those days are long gone. Information is king. As the French philosopher, Jean-François Lyotard predicted, we are now at a crossroad where we have way too much information and the time has come where nations would go to war to gain control over this commodity and cow their fellow beings into submission!
There has been a famous conspiracy theory going around which suggests that it is most likely that William Shakespeare could not have written all the evergreen plays that the history books claim he had. In those days, knowledge and artistic indulgence were the privilege of the royalty and aristocrats. Shakespeare haling from the working class just could not have done himself, writing all those historical tragedies and comedies set in a different era, all written in poetic English that had stood the test of time.

Here, Shakespeare is depicted as a drunkard, a semi-illiterate and a womanizing actor who blackmails the original writer of the scripts Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford. 

The Queen and the real 'Shakespeare'

The Earl is madly indulged into writing plays that he basically wastes his whole property away. He alleges that a voice compels him to write. He keeps stacks and stacks of stories until he met a playwright, Ben Johnson, to stage his plays. You see, they were living in a time when art, stage and drama was considered unholy, the work of Satan.

The Queen at that time, however, Queen Elizabeth I was a sucker for stage performances. The other fictional part of the film is about the monarch herself. Even though, Queen Elizabeth I has always been embodied as a virtuous queen with the title 'The Virgin Queen', here she is displayed as a nymphomaniac. She has many illegitimate sons without knowledge, all covered up by her scheming minister advisor William Cecil.  

De Vere, the Earl and writer, starts an affair with the Queen after she is fascinated with his play. That union resulted in him to sire a son who is given to adoption. History says that she was the last monarch from the Tudor Dynasty who did not have a heir. In this film, Willian Cecil and his son deviously throne King James I of Scotland as the king after her. 

We are also told De Vere had an incestous relationship as the Queen is also his mother that he did not know!

The film progressed with excellent backdrop of the 16th century England with stories of deceit and vice. 

After the death of de Vere, Ben Johnson is given the remaining manuscripts. The truth of the real author remains a mystery. 

As you can see, the story is quite treacherous and putting many people of high standings in history in a very bad light. In the name of artistic license and freedom of expression, nobody really creates a ruckus. They all know it is a work of fiction.... Just like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy!

A way with words!

Pockets of civilizations started with confluences of humans sporadically in areas considered fertile, non hostile, hospitable and habitable.Over time, the inhabitants started developing sets of rules and governance to maintain law,order and sanity to the weaker one in the society. They developed the art of imparting knowledge to the progeny so the knowledge that their forefathers had acquired by trial and error would not be lost in translation or the annals of time! With the innate greed that was ingrained in the DNA, pretty soon, one civilization tried expand their land over the other. (Land = Crops = Produce = No hunger = Bargaining power = Respect = Primordial sexual needs satisfied)
One technique employed by the invaders was make subject of their conquest to look down upon their own achievements, even though advanced by light years, and to look upon the the visitors' feats awestruck whilst to discard their own. Awestruck, they were and discard, they did!
And so the whole world speaks English and its forms it is spoken. And not knowing to speak in the lingua franca of the world is cringed upon.
Like that, the product of the post-modern world like me seem to find greater joy in appreciating the finer points in English rather than my own mother tongue. One of the podcast that I enjoy listening to right now is 'A Way with Words'. It is a programme showcasing the use of the English for the people who use it as their native language. The presenters of the show make an interesting presentation of learning English in a very fun and imaginative way. Some of the information that one can pick up are quite mind boggling and sometimes plain simple. They also discuss some idioms and obscure expression, looking at it from a history perspective and origin.
For example, "I am going the cut the quick of you....". The word 'quick' in the phrase refers to life, just like quick-sand (sand appears alive), baby quickening (the baby is alive), the quick and death (living persons), nails bitten down to the quick (the tender, sensitive flesh of the living body)....
Some of the things may appear petty but to lovers of the language, it must be God-send. There is a difference between the usage if the word 'use' and 'utilize', if it really matters! If you use a stapler to staple, then you use a stapler. If you use a stapler to do something that it is not intended for, like to smack somebody on the head, then you utilize the stapler!

https://soundcloud.com/waywordradio/120922-awww-1349-good-juju-mp3

Carry on Again Doctor

Carry On Again Doctor! 1969
This film brings me to the time 40 years on my daily bus trips to Hutchings School on the public bus. On one of the lucky days when I get a seat on the bus, I would gain passive learning absorbing like a sponge from the view I would see off the bus. The area at the end of Dato Kramat Road opposite 'Craven A' restaurant used to be an area (now Gama supermarket, don't know whether it is still there) with a large 2 storey high 3 faced cinema billboard depicting shows playing at cinemas Cathay, Odeon and Gala. Cathay always screens English language movies, Odeon Mandarin/Cantonese whilst Gala, I presume was for adult themed and horrors flicks. I remember seeing posters from the 'Carry On' series and the then scary sensation 'Snake Girl' and 'Snake Woman' Hong Kong films.
For this old times' sake, I decided to give this movie a go. 'Carry on again Doctor' is a British slapstick comedy with a little bit of English wittiness infused in its dialogue. It is just a commercially focused sex exploiting pass time film with no cerebral activity. Oh what the heck, time to unwind after heavy dialogue saga of World War 2 and Adolf Hitler.
In fact the 'Carry On' series, all 31 of them are the biggest thing contributed by UK to the cinema world after The Man from the Secret Service with the licence to kill.
The recurring cast appears all most their films. In this 1969 outing, the story revolves around a bumbling young doctor Dr Nookey who is forever creating havoc in this NHS hospital. After creating quite a ruckus at  a hospital charity party after his drink was spiked with surgical spirit, he banished to serve as a doctor in a godforsaken shack called hospital in a tropical island where it rains for 9 months in a year and  there is typhoon for the other three.
You see, this banishment was the Senior Surgeon Dr Shaver's scheme to place a doctor in a widow's (Mrs Moore) missionary hospital that she was financing. In return, Dr Shaver was to received funds for him to start his own nursing home.
Dr Nookey found that that what he thought as hospital in paradise turned out to be a leaky ramshackle run by an orderly, Mr Screwy. As all the natives still believed in the witch doctor and no one seek modern treatment, Screwy use the drug money to stock loads of Red Label whiskey.
The wards turned out to be where Screwy housed his 5 wives and kids!
Disheartened, Dr Nookey drowns his sorrow in the bottle. Screwy tries to get Dr Nookey to marry one of the local girl. Noticing that the girl was way overweight, he declines. Screwy brings the same girl a week later much slimmer with his own witch doctor formulation of medicine.
Nookey trades the medicine for a box and cigarette (Rothmans) and heads back home. With Mrs Moore's financial backing, he starts his own successful private weight loss practice.
Reading about his success in the media, his former colleagues and Screwy scramble over to claim their share of the pie with hysterical predictable outcome.
Just good to pass time when you have nothing else better to do....

Smoasting

Cà Testaredda - the villa they stayed in

...."Somebody's smoast"

Every living day is a day to arm our arsenal of knowledge. As a dynamic language, the English language increases it vocabulary periodically. The latest word that may make its way to our dictionaries is the word 'smoast'. Smoast refers to the act of boasting in social media (sm), hence sm-oasting.
Anyway, that is the reason social medias were created in the first place. To put nice pictures of places that you have been to (indirectly saying', "Eat your heart out! I have been to the 'Four Seasons', see your can beat that!").  To put messages and be 'liked' by thousands of your FB friends- indirectly saying "See everybody likes me, see if you can beat that!"......Show off!
And this is my latest picture with my prettiest outfits even though everyone in my family dislike me because I am ugly in the inside....

Collin Harper Dictionary

Definition of SMOASTING (awaiting approval): The act of using social media networks to appear smug and boast in uploaded images.

The days that we have seen...

Chimes at midnight / Falstaff (1965)

I am neither a student of Shakespeare nor one born in the circle of aristocrats but I have been informed that this is a compilation of Shakespeare's work taken bits and pieces here and there and altered slightly to give this Orson Welles' direction everlasting praise and awards. The fat comical character of Falstaff who appears in many of Shakespeare's plays is played by Orson Welles in this movie. He calls himself Sir John Faltroff but he seems to be just a petty thief who claims to be and to do more than he could.
Richard II dies (some say murdered by Duke Bollingbroke) and relatives of the heir, Mortimer, comes to claim the throne but is chased away by the Duke. The Duke proclaims himself as King Henry IV. There is much chaos in the land but his son, The Prince, is just too happy fooling around with his fat fraud friend  Falstaff and his friends of ill repute in a lodge.
After much deliberation, the Prince manages to fight the mutiny and take over the throne from his ailing father. He assumes the title King Henry V.
Upon hearing news of good friend's ascent to the throne, Falstaff visits the King who humiliates him and takes him to be someone from his bad dream and would like to life anew. He is imprisoned but is released  the following day. Disheartened, Falstaff dies shortly afterwards.
The story may not be much but the poetic English with word play and comedy which sounds melodiously music to their ears is the plus point of the film. Kudos should also go to the grueling war scene on horse backs.

N.B. I remember a time when RTM used to screen 'Merchant of Venice' and other classics just before the SPM (O-levels) examinations at the end of the year for the benefit of relevant students.

Sorry, my England (English) not so good one!

Seen in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur

Now, the picture here will paint more than a dull state of our education system. It also gives a non-impressive picture of the malaise (and lackadaisical) attitude of the society. 

Much has been said about the general pathetic decline of the standard of English Language amongst our youth today. I will start sounding worse than a retarded parrot if I go along that line. Malaysians boast of high literacy rate (more than 80%). We are better than most of our neighbours and African nations, anyway! 

Any infant who is babbling to learn the English Language will know what the words 'Father', 'Mother', 'Brother' or 'Sister' mean. Obviously, the advertiser here is offering her services of babysitting not involved in a baby-selling racquet offering couples with baby sisters to their lonely sons! The least the person (advertiser) can do is let someone proofread before jokers like us make fun of them. Is finding a person slightly proficient in English so hard to come by?

The nearest thing remotely English is these people's lives must be watching Mr Bean's pantomime!