Interesting Times

“May you live in interesting times”…says a supposed Chinese curse, although apparently no such thing exists.   However we do live in interesting, not to say disturbing times, which as a friend remarked the other day are beginning to feel increasingly apocalyptic. I have to agree, but being (a) an optimist and (b)strictly apolitical, I am hoping for the best. I have tried to stay away from ‘politics’, which in my experience seem to raise its tricky head in situations other than …politics!   I think to be really political, in real politics, you have to be very well educated, very well read and capable of proper thought, not just “sound bites” and social media.   So I have tried to avoid politics all my life, particularly in my own industry, where ‘politics’ is endemic.

Winter Idaho 2017

So trying to put all this out of mind, I try to focus on those larger and more attractive aspects of our life.   Nature is

Snow 2017

certainly one.   Right now I am living in the grip of big snow in Idaho and it certainly slows down our frantic and self obsessed little lives.   We look at everything a bit differently and our priorities change….we slow down….not the heady rush to the gym or the store, but ” should I shovel my driveway today, find a way to take out the garbage, since I cant open my back gate, with the heavy snow leaning against it….are my neighbours OK?”….probably…. since they are younger than me and so and so on.

Adam’s Woman

I have been lucky to see much of different slices of nature as an actor travelling about the world, the countries I have

Hong Kong Street Market

lived in. A few memories that spring to mind….. the sight of a little Chinese girl in her English school uniform, sitting in the gutter in a Hong Kong street market, doing her homework, concentrating and ignoring the chaos and the people , when I was making “A TIME FOR LOVE.   I remember the endless flies in the magnificent outback of Australia, when making ADAMS WOMAN…..the beauty

White ponies of the Camargue in France

and green of Ireland…..the wonderful white ponies of the Camargue in France, which I rode, on a day out with Peter O’Toole, when we were making THE LION IN WINTER. I remember luxuriating in a natural hot springs swimming pool in Colorado, when make a TV movie, UNIT 4 and my freezing feet in thin shoes in mid winter in a graveyard in Yorkshire, when making the television play THE BIRTH OF A PRIVATE MAN.   I could go on and on. Maybe I will another time! We in show business are so lucky to have had the opportunity to enjoy so many varied and interesting places and seen so much of the wonders of Nature.