Isle of Wight News on Ventnor Blog

If you were unable to get into the ’sold out’ Tom Priestley talk that took place in Brook last year, you’ll be pleased to hear that there’ll be a repeat performance in May.

Tom Priestly, son of the famous writer and broadcaster, J B Priestley, will be returning to the Island for an informal evening of memories and a film he made about his father, who lived at Brook Hill House in the 1950s and 60s.

Tickets are reasonably priced at just £2.50 but will go quickly.

See details of how to get yours on Events On The Wight

I ask because, despite being a reasonable 34 inch waist with not too much of a bulge above, I find I can only just manage the operation myself.

Sitting on the edge of the bed I have to pull my leg tight up into my tummy and stretch my arms to their limit in order to flip the sock opening over my toes.

And if I don’t manage it first flip I have to put my foot back on the floor so I can take a breath or two before trying again.

It’s all part of the ageing process of course. I have the same trouble with shoe laces.

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If you’re planning to have some quiet nights in, why not try out the DVD or book collection at your local library?

Here are the latest acquisitions for Ventnor Library.

DVD
An Education – 3 Oscar nominations
Julie and Julia – Meryl Street – Oscar nominated for Best Actress

Fiction
Clive CUSSLER Spartan Gold – a Fargo adventure
Annie GROVES Hettie of Hope Street – heart versus head…
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If you fancy a night in watching a DVD, then take a look at the selection available at Island Libraries. At just £1 per night, they’re a great bargain. Ed

Written by Ronnie Christensen and starring Anne Hathaway and Patrick Wilson – an actor of immense bravado for appearing in the extremely intense ‘Hard Candy’.

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Regular readers will remember the news that Islander Robin Ford has just launched a new collection of poems.

If you’d like to meet the poet and have your copy of his new collection, On The Brink, signed, then make sure you put this in your diary.

Robin will be attending a book signing at Waterstones in Newport next Tuesday evening from 6.30pm.

If you do go along, please don’t forget to say where you heard about it.

In what may turn out to be quite an irregular feature, here’s the first offering of observation on Island life from Island cartoonist, Tobe.

The strip’s called ‘Somewhen’. We hope you like it.

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The Minghella Film Festival returns to Newport this weekend, but the Festival is not just about screening Anthony Minghella’s TV programmes and films. There’s a great range of film/writing related workshops taking place too.

Make a Film in A Day
Kicking off on Saturday morning, the first workshop is a full day course being run in association with the Young Film Academy.

The hands-on Make a Film in A Day workshop will be led by award-winning trainers helping young people aged 13 – 19 to make a ten shot digital film, from planning through to post-production in seven hours.

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When l was a kid, scrabbling about bomb sites in search of shrapnel to add to my collection, the words ‘fruit’ and ‘apple’ were interchangeable.

Simply because there wasn’t anything else.

They came in three varieties.

Eating apples, which were crisp and sweet and juicy and red. Cooking apples, huge and green and incredibly sour and eaten not only baked and swimming in Lyle’s Golden but also bitten into raw so as to prove your manliness. (more…)

This article was sent to us by Daft Old Duffer prior to the news regarding David Pugh that came out yesterday. Sorry Duffer for not getting it out sooner. Ed

A couple of things need to be said, l think, about David Pugh being referred to the Standards committee.

One is that the councillors doing the referring did so, in my opinion, not because they have suddenly seen the light and become angelic defenders of the right and truthful, but to gain a political advantage for themselves.

I don’t infer they are wrong. Simply that they are kicking a man when he’s down, just like all politicians.

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If you fancy a night in watching a DVD, then take a look at the selection available at Island Libraries. At just £1 per night, they’re a great bargain. Ed

From the ‘land of the brave’ hails a DVD that throws new light on the role of the detective and how they work and gives pursuit to solving a murder that at first seems almost impossible to even begin to understand.

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Around the globe today bookworms are celebrating World Book Day.

The annual event celebrates and encourages reading for all ages.

Here on the Island, parents and children took part in family ‘World Book Day’ breakfasts at Sandham Middle School, Oakfield Primary School and West Wight Youth and Community Centre.

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Need some distractions for the weekend ahead?

Try the library for a new DVD or book. DVDs at 50p for children overnight and £1 for adults

FICTION
J L CARRELL The Shakespeare curse – a sickening modern killer…Best Seller
Alexander McCall SMITH Tea time for the traditionally built – Best seller
John CONNOLLY The lovers – Best seller
Linwood BARCLAY Fear the worst …can anything be more terrifying?…
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I am not well suited to the gadget age, I find.

The first one I acquired was a cellphone. A huge brick of a thing I bought not for ’street-wise’ reasons but because I rather resented paying British Telecom £11 a month for the privilege of making two telephone calls, each at less than two minutes duration.

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If you fancy a night in watching a DVD, then take a look at the selection available at Island Libraries. At just £1 per night, they’re a great bargain. Ed

There have been occasional documentaries that follow the process of creation and through perseverance and attempts at understanding of the subject, something stunning or worthy of attention duly arrives.

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Need some distractions for the weekend? Try the library for a new DVD or book. DVDs at 50p for children overnight and £1 for adults

DVD
Michael Jackson – this is it
Up – the new Pixar
Pandorum – don’t fear the end of the world, fear what happens next…

FICTION
Karen ROSE Don’t tell – shhh..he’s coming for you…Best Sellers
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The recent discussions in the forum regarding the merits of various Indian restaurants has made me smile. A bit smugly, I must confess.

Everyone is thinking of ‘posh’ curry of course. The sort served up to maharajas on silver platters.

My early experience of the dish was a little different. (No inferences here, I must stress, to any restaurants on the Island, all of whom have a justifiably good reputation)

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If you fancy a night in watching a DVD, then take a look at the selection available at Island Libraries. At just £1 per night, they’re a great bargain. Ed

If you have not heard of Chuck Palaniuk, an American writer, then ‘Choke’ is an excellent introduction into his perspective on ‘the land of the free…’, with its excellent dialogue and brave attempts at understanding of taboo subject matter, ‘Choke’ reveals the talent Chuck really has.

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Considering that 67 year old Islander Robin Ford didn’t start writing poetry until his mid fifties, it’s pretty impressive that as well as already having published two poetry collections, he has another about to be launched.

Following ‘After The Wound’ and ‘Never Quite Prepared For Light’ (both published by Arrowhead Press) comes ‘On The Brink’ (published by Cinnamon Press).

Born in Cowes and growing up in Newport, Robin tells VB that he first started writing after a serious bout of illness. His past career had been in teaching during which, for the most part, he taught at Cowes High School.

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Someone’s told me you can now buy fridges that talk.

I don’t know what they talk about, other than reminding you you’ve left the door open. Or you’ve run out of butter. Or you’re way too fat and can only have a lettuce leaf for lunch.

Whatever – I won’t be getting one. My sanity is precarious enough already.

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Need some distractions for the weekend? Try the library for a new DVD or book. DVDs at 50p for children overnight and £1 for adults

DVDs
Driving Aphrodite – star of My Big Fat Greek Wedding finally goes to Greece
The Ugly Truth – Gerard Butler and Katherine Heigl
Time Traveller’s Wife – from the best selling book
Love Happens – Jennifer Aniston and Aaron Eckhart
Invention of lying – Ricky Gervais
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If you fancy a night in watching a DVD, then take a look at the selection available at Island Libraries. At just £1 per night, they’re a great bargain. Ed

Being a female film director in an industry that is predominantly more male cannot be too easy.

Then having the added grand pressure of having a Father who has single-handedly and very successfully changed the very structure of film-making in America to an art-form, Jennifer Lynch, daughter of David Lynch has at long last become a proven successor.

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More new acquisitions at Ventnor Library. Why not hire a DVD for the weekend or start reading a new book? DVDs start at 50p for children and £1 for adults overnight.

DVDs
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (pictured)
Halloween II : Family is Forever

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I thought readers might be interested in a story – a true story – and old boy told me a long time ago.

He was a van and truck salesman in the twenties and thirties of last century and his tale concerned a Jew named Cohen who lived in the East End of London and earned a living selling off a barrow in the street.

A ‘costermonger’ in fact.

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Another week of new items at the library in Ventnor. DVDs are just 98p a night, what a bargain!

DVDs
Fame – the remake
Whiteout – Antarctica, the most isolated landmass on earth

Fiction
Neil CROSS Captured – how many wrongs will put things right?
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A neighbour of mine was walking his dog through Los Altos Park recently when the dog spotted a fox lurking by the fence that lined the railway.

Of course it gave chase. Whereupon the fox slipped back through a gap in the fence and darted up over the track.

The excited dog followed. And died on the electrified line.

It may have been luck that the fox escaped unharmed.

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