Finally got round to making a visit to the cinema last night when we went to see Capote at The Watershed. It’s a fantastic portrait of the way vanity and selfishness can destroy the most brilliant of people. How strange though that Capote and Harper Lee should work so closely on the book “In Cold Blood” whilst she was releasing “To Kill a Mockingbird” to a grateful public.

Yet, following the huge success of both books we hardly heard from them again. From the little I know about Harper Lee. It looks like she choose a self-imposed exile in much the same way as J.D. Salinger did. Capote’s situation was very different as he promised to produce the next great work right up to his death, able only to produce some enjoyable short stories and a disappointing posthumous release. Sadly the sparkle and wit of his conversation became his calling card rather than his writing. Even that appears to have left him in later life as his comments became spiteful and aggrieved rather than charming.

We are off to see the splendid Charlie Parr at The Cube tomorrow night. One the fondest memories of my time at Imperial Music was the day that Charlie came into the store to play for us. A lovely man, with an inspired take on American blues music it should be a great night. To hear him attacking that guitar of his with such gusto, whist singing with the weight of the world sitting on soul is one of the great things in music.

A couple of other things come to mind. Firstly isn’t it great to have some in the England cricket team called Monty? Pretty soon they will be using ties for belts and having handle bar moustaches once again.

Sadly the other thing is not so good, we were both really shocked to hear that Linda Smith had died earlier this week. She was the probably the sharpest, funniest person in the UK. Never cruel, but able to put the pompous in their place with the most subtle of put-downs, she captured the absurd nature of the British character perfectly. She will be missed.