Seen and heard: May 2013

A Chinese Ghost Story - 1987 Hong Kong film. Terrible title, great movie: a perfect blend of traditional romance, supernatural horror (moderate), and martial arts (pre-CGI), with a beautiful theme song. My old VHS copy had become unplayable; thanks for the DVD, George.

Star Trek: Into Darkness - new film. Quite fun, and they have recreated the characters faithfully and interestingly; but this, like its predecessor, is essentially an action film, which the original Star Trek never was (though it contained action elements). There are women science fiction writers who say that they were brought into SF by the original Star Trek; I can't imagine that being said about the reboot.

Clare Teal and her big band - live at Cambridge Arts Theatre, thrillingly recreating the songs of jazz divas such as Doris Day and Peggy Lee. Though most memorable was her low key with solo piano cover of Billy Joel's And So It Goes.

Houghton Hall Revisited - Robert Walpole's original collection of paintings returned to their original hanging sites, on loan from The Hermitage in St Petersburg where they normally reside, having been sold to Catherine the Great two hundred years ago. A 18th century aristocrat's assembly of the greatest classical artworks he could obtain, housed in a purpose-built stately home: historical perfection.

Elidor, by Alan Garner - a re-reading of his potent children's book, which I first read in 1971. As always with Garner, strong on place and period - in this case, inner city Manchester in the 1960s when slum clearances left whole streets as urban wastelands - with supernatural forces breaking through into the everyday world, including most memorably the family's television. "Adjust the Vertical Hold!" "No, try the Contrast!" Who now possesses the then commonplace skill of tuning in and lining up a 1960s TV?

Apollo 13 - the film. Always good to re-watch when things aren't so good, to remind you that they could be worse. What I noticed this time was the NASA engineer preoccupied throughout with covering his own back; for example: "We can't give any guarantee that the lunar module can do that, it was designed to land on the moon." Gene Kranz's model response: "Well unfortunately we're not going to the moon, are we. The question isn't what was it designed to do, the question is what can it do."