TCM triumph

I was worried during the intro to tonight’s in-theater showing of Casablanca by Turner Classic Movies, because the sound was out of sync with the picture. The problem was bad enough that I went to the concession counter and told one of the staff there about it. If the movie itself had that problem, I would have told Carol we were leaving and requested a refund but, happily, the presentation was nearly perfect. The 4:3 “Academy” aspect ratio was maintained, and the sound was monaural, as it should be. The picture could have been a bit brighter, but that’s a common complaint at movie theaters these days.

P.S. The show was very well attended. I’d estimate 2/3 of the seats were taken.

The Beeb loses Claire Bolderson

I first heard Claire Bolderson in the mid-90’s, when WBUR in Boston (which gets $60/year from me) added the BBC World Service to its broadcast schedule. I also heard the World Service on shortwave radio, then later the BBC became available over the Internet. Through the years I’ve been listening to Bolderson’s distinctive voice and her intelligent reporting and observations. Yesterday, I caught Claire on the World Service saying goodbye. WBUR’s Robin Young talked with Claire about her departure from the Beeb.

[audio:http://audio.wbur.org/storage/2012/03/hereandnow_0320_claire-bolderson-bbc.mp3|titles=Claire Bolderson on ‘Here & Now’]

Upgrade!

I pulled the trigger, or bit the bullet, or whatever gun-related metaphor you prefer, on the Bluehost Pro Plan. It took longer than I thought it would to complete the transfer to a less busy host, but now that it’s done the improvement is anything but subtle. The site should be a lot faster now, and if it isn’t, let me know.

Back on a train of thought

It’s always a treat seeing pictures of Prue Bury for the first time. This one came from The Gilly on Tumblr. Prue was waiting for hairdresser Betty Glasow to take the pins out of her hair, and John pretended to cut it himself.

It’s interesting that John did that, in light of these comments by Prue:

John threw me by saying, “I hear you don’t like our singing!” Oops, what do I say to that? It is true that in one of the newspaper interviews I had said that I was impressed by their sharp repartee more than their singing! On reflection, a dumb thing to say. I plead nerves! Naturally I denied it and said the obvious, that one could never believe what one read in the press and wiggled out of it.

The boys were great fun on the train and kept Pattie and I laughing with their jokes. They were easy to get on with and natural in their behaviour, although John was the most reserved, and so when we were not shooting we sat and joked and smoked a lot… just cigarettes!! !! Ringo was mad about taking photos and snapped everything in sight, including me.

So even though John was the most reserved Beatle on that occasion, he was comfortable enough with Prue to play with her hair. But he didn’t get as silly as George did, wearing one of the hats the girls had — I assume it was Pattie’s. This picture is from the Yahoo group, Pattie Boyd’s Sixties Style.

All of these pictures were taken by Astrid Kirchherr, who signed this gallery print.

And here’s one of the snapshots that was taken by Ringo. I used it on Prue’s birthday last year. Lynn at Pattie Boyd’s Sixties Style did a great job of image editing to hide the page seam.