Tom Wiggins, Letter Carver & Writer

I saw Greta Gerwig's Barbie on the last Saturday of July.   I went with some friends whose nine year-old girl went wearing a pink dress.   I looked like the single uncle they invited out of pity.   I liked the film, but I wasn’t gushing with praise when I came out.   I gave it a six out of ten.   Maybe a seven at a stretch.   But what I did love was what it’ll do for Greta Gerwig and female film directors as a whole.   It’s a certified billion dollar movie.   The film has grossed $1.3 billion so far, and it’s still doing good business.    The film that is now inextricably linked with it is Oppenheimer, the Christopher Nolan film about the creation of the atomic bomb.   The publicity that the “Barbenheimer” pairing created was extraordinary.   I don’t know whether the studios pedalled the idea from the outset or whether it was simply a fan-made viral sensation.   Either way, it worked.   Who could have predicted that t...

  I’m torn between saying ‘Hell, I’m not getting anything done’ and ‘Today has started slowly.’  But I did run four miles this morning and driven into Chipping Norton so it's not all that bad.  And and and: I did read another excellent P.G. Wodehouse story called Mulliner’s Buck-U-Uppo and it was just as dazzling as The Spot of Art.  This one’s about a ‘very young and extremely pale’ curate called Augustine, and to add to that description, a rather sickly and meek curate at that.  His superior, the Reverend Stanley Brandon, is a tempestuous former boxer and a big personality. Augustine happens to be in love with his daughter and the feeling’s mutual.  That’s the set up and the story doesn’t let the reader down.  The Bishop, whom the Reverend has known since school, is due to visit to give his former classmate a dressing down over the excessive embroidery on his cloak.  Stanley Brandon is gearing up for a terrific argument with his superior.  ...