Discovered on my hard drive’s page 7 was a TV film from last year, An Inspector Calls. I swivered over whether to delete or not. Not got the verdict and I watched.
The play in question was part of my English O grade course a few Keith Moons ago. I couldn’t remember anything about it as, during the readings, I was too busy throwing paper planes and making passes, unrequited I must add, at my beloved Lillian. Therefore, the story was all new to me.
I’d give it a six out of ten. Criticisms were that the Birling family must have been well birling not to ask to see the Inspector’s I.D. And David Thewlis, the actor playing the Inspector, had all the charisma of a stopped clock.
Still, like Columbus, it’s good to discover. And that’s one play less to score off my play list. Now, away to rummage in the loft and see if there’s any old DVDs still in the wrappers. I’m sure there’s a Dustin Hoffman Death of a Salesman gathering dust up there.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Note for Boadicea and Bearsy: Sorry for using the photos on your storage space. One of these days I’ll try and re-work out how to use my space. It’s been awhile.
Haw JW,
Isn’t it typical of the cultural imperialism to which Scots of our generation were subject that we were forced to study English plays like this? How refreshing it is that that today’s pupils are being learnt wheens o guid Scots wirds tae mak siccar that thae bluidy English cannae unnerstaund whit we’re sayin aboot the scunners.
Moving on to ‘birling’. A fine word which might, perhaps, have thrown most of your readers apart from Sheona and myself. If any non-Scots do know the word, I blame Alex Salmond for letting them in on its meaning when he said that Tony Benn would be burling (sic) in his grave after his son Hilary’s speech in the House of Commons.
Mind, CO might also know what the word means. Wikipedia assures me that people in her neck of the woods spend most of their leisure time in a competitive log rolling event called birling – I presume that the Scots settlers in North America brought the word with them across the Atlantic.
Turning to ‘An Inspector Calls’, it is,in my opinion, one of the boy Priestley’s best bits of work. I’m sorry that Thewlis did not impress but the 1954 version starring Alastair Sim is well worth a view. Bryan Forbes played the son.
Which brings me to his widow, Nanette Newman. To be fair, lots of stuff brings me to Nanette Newman – it’s a Jenny Agutter sort of thing
I agree that David Thewlis’s inspector is not a patch on Alastair Sim’s, but it must be very difficult to play an omniscient, supernatural policeman.
JM, you should fly a flag before you mention Nanette and Jenny. I need to be seated and armed with a beverage to withstand the onrush of the memories. But thanks anyway. 😍
JM: I was obliged to read Robert Burns in the original Scots — not always with the benefit of an English-Scots, Scots-English dictionary. One wonders if the NSPS — National Sociality Party of Scotland — is interested in running a country or a tartan theme park. Perhaps they can organise international events with the Sveriges Demokraterna in their Sverigedräkten, the Bayern Partei in their Lederhosen and Dirndls and the Greenlandic Inuit Ataqatigiit in their seal intestine frocks!
Christopher, why shouldn’t you read Burns in his own language?
Sheona: it loses something when not in Scots. My point was that others read works be Scots writers in Scots, yet the SNP whinge about their being too many English writers.
JM, maybe this will calm your fantasies.
But this one is a corker. Don’t mention flowers.