Legends

Straight after work we went across to The Everyman, where we met Abi to see 'Oppenheimer'. Two things were giving me reservations: the first was everyone saying how fantastic the film is, and the second was the fact that it's three hours long.

In the end, though, the duration was not a problem, and the film was, indeed, fantastic. Quite apart from the fact that I enjoy anything where people are being enthusiastic about physics, there was just so much to love.

The casting and consequent ensemble acting was a joy, not least for Tom Conti as Einstein. Nolan's screenplay was entirely worthy of the plaudits it's received, and it was (unsurprisingly for Nolan) beautifully shot. A truly great film.

I think my favourite part was the long delay between the light and blast of the explosion, which also worked as a metaphor for the bomb's impact on the world and also for the long-term impact of the bomb on the people of Hiroshima.

Ultimately, of course, the film is concerned with Oppenheimer himself: his undoubted genius, his naivety regarding the use of the bomb, and how he was treated subsequently to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Probably the best one can say is that eighty years on, only a minority of people consider the use of the bomb to have been undisputedly right. The threat of the Germans and the (possible) net lives saved in the war with Japan don't carry the weight they did at the time. For myself, I think it was wrong.

On the way home, after dinner at Porta, I saw this poster of John Cale, who's playing at Albert Hall in a couple of weeks' time. I came to love him when he and Lou Reed performed 'Songs For Drella'*, and his 'Fragments Of A Rainy Season' remains one of my all-time favourite albums.

The only time I've seen him play live was in 1999 (I think), when he played the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow. It is one of the best gigs I've ever been to, which puts me in an awkward position: do I want to see him again?

*I have this on an old VHS, despite having no video player. Inexplicably, this unavailable on DVD.