{"id":1091,"date":"2004-12-25T15:45:07","date_gmt":"2004-12-25T09:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.t-e-g.co.uk:\/blog\/?p=1091"},"modified":"2004-12-25T15:45:07","modified_gmt":"2004-12-25T09:45:07","slug":"saturday-25th-december-2004","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.t-e-g.co.uk\/blog\/saturday-25th-december-2004\/","title":{"rendered":"Saturday 25th December 2004"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tradition, the foundation for this time of year.  Sown into the very fabric of this country, our way  of life, our way of doing things, dare I be political  to utter the word, &#8216;culture&#8217;. If there are two groups  of people that roam this earth, one set embrace tradition,  convention, the establishment. While the rest reject  it, to take their own path. I could never be anything  but a creature of habit, routine and ultimate dependence.  I have my reasons but then I am sure there are quire  valid reasons for you dreading your path. Each to  their own.<\/p> <p>Yet, I find myself still longer to aspire to greater tradition than the reasonable  standard that I have already set. One such aspect  would be a seasonal visit to the cinema. Sure, I venture  to the multiplex at the wrong time of year. With the  summer heat striking down upon us, I am quite keen  to catch the summer&#8217;s biggest blockbuster, rather  than anything else. Last year, there was one film  that I had to see. In my eagerness to I asked a close  friend if they wanted to go with me. Their response  was that it was not worth the visit to the cinema.  Disheartened, I allowed the opinion of another to overpower my strong will, knowing also, that there was not much time left to catch a screening locally or even more closer to the actual <a href=\"http:\/\/www.visitlondon.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">setting<\/a>.  My only excuse is that there is never the time to  fit in a trip to the cinema, even with the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thefilmworks.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\">FilmWorks<\/a>  a stepping stone away. Too many other things going  on and movies are much lower down the list of priorities.  Particularly when there are so many things to organize  and errands to run.<\/p> <p>This year, in mid November I discovered that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.skymovies.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Sky  Movies<\/a> would be making the digital premiere of  that very movie on Christmas Day. Joy filled my heart,  hoping that this would be an opportunity for the entire  family to sit down, in the evening and spend a few  enjoyable hours with sugary entertainment. Did it  happen? Well I am happy to report it did, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0314331\/\" target=\"_blank\">actually<\/a>.  (Yes a very poor pun, but in the circumstances and  considering the date, I hope you will be kind enough  to forgive me.) Firstly, let me state that I can fully  understand why people do not like this movie. Several  months ago, Clive Bull had this discussion on his  late night talk show on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lbc.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\">LBC<\/a>  and the negative feeling regarding the Curtis production  was clearly evident. However, let me give my personal  response. At this time of year, we seem to cocoon  ourselves into our own little lives, surrounded by  our family, friends and loved ones. We seem to forget  how this can be the most difficult time of year for  many others. The film tries to get this message across,  and also establish the fact that not all love stories  have a happy ending. Although, anything shot under  the banner of the festive season has some poetic licence.  Yes, this film does showcase the brilliance of London  at this time of year and does this extremely well,  proving that Britain can match some of the more traditional  Christmas locations, such as New York, or exotic as  Sydney. Sometimes we go to the cinema to be frightened,  just like we jump onto a roller coaster to be pushed  to the edges of our physical boundaries. I believe  deep down inside all of us, there is a beating heart  that wants to be warmed. This evening, my heart was  gracefully warmed by the eight intertwined storylines of this movie. There is little need for substance, particularly when the image portrayed tells us so  much about the human soul. Can <a href=\"http:\/\/www.virgin.net\/movies\/interviews\/colin.html\" target=\"_blank\">feel good<\/a> cinema get any better? Not really, but do  you know the reason why? Christmas is the most magical  time of year and sometimes, just sometimes dreams  can come true.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tradition, the foundation for this time of year. Sown into the very fabric of this country, our way of life, our way of doing things, dare I be political to utter the word, &#8216;culture&#8217;. If there are two groups of people that roam this earth, one set embrace tradition, convention, the establishment. While the rest [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christmas-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.t-e-g.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.t-e-g.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.t-e-g.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.t-e-g.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.t-e-g.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.t-e-g.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1091\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.t-e-g.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.t-e-g.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.t-e-g.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}