I read quite a lot, but the majority of  it has been Marvel Comics and Science Fiction books. When I first joined my book club, (which is mainly populated by female teachers), I didn’t think they would like such a ‘boys only’ genre, so I picked other books for the group to read.

My first choice was I thought fairly ‘safe’. “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by Ken Kesey. This was also a great film with Jack Nicholson. The book however gives terrifying descriptions of probably the most evil monster in fiction: Nurse Ratched.

Nowhere Boy is a great new film dealing with something rarely covered in books, and never portrayed in film – John Lennon’s childhood. It brilliantly manages to evoke the atmosphere of suburban life, circa 1960.

The Director Sam Taylor-Wood manages to avoid the obvious cliche of telling Lennon’s story through his and the Beatles songs, instead there is plenty of the 1950′s music that inspired the Group during their formative teenage years.

The artist Steve Ditko collaborated with writer Stan Lee to forge a unique style for Spider-Man that the film director Sam Raimi has reinterpreted for the screen.

Although Stan Lee created the character and wrote the origin story, Steve Ditko felt restricted by Lee’s editorship and asked if he could plot the Spiderman stories. Lee eventually agreed to this, although no other Marvel artist in the early 1960s had won this concession.

Ditko would hand over the completed Spiderman illustrations and Stan Lee would insert the dialogue. This created the unique Spiderman style with numerous pages dealing soley with Peter Parker’s private life, instead of battling the latest super-villain, which tended to happen in other Marvel titles.

I have always been anti-TV. I love reading, so having a TV on in the room interferes with that. Whenever I watch a lot of TV, (more than an hour), I’m left with an empty, “what a waste of time” , feeling. I have never been able to put my finger on why I felt like this, until now.

The psychologist Oliver James has written a book called “Affluenza“, which is an analysis of the causes of depression in a materially affluent world. On page 284 he looks at the effect of TV;

Why are many new films so long? I ask this question as someone who remembers when going to the Cinema involved watching TWO films: The Main Feature and the ‘B’ film. The ‘B’ film was shown first as a ‘warm up’ to the main act.

This was followed by an intermission where ice creams and chocolates were sold. The cinema may also show some short cartoons and ‘Pathe News’ to keep the audience up to date with world events.

It was an entertaining evening which lasted around 3 hours, which meant each of the films was about 90 minutes long. Many, many films these days are 3 hours or even longer! Why is this?

I go to the cinema regularly and one of the few adverts I enjoy are the series for Orange Wednesday. They involve famous actors/actresses being interviewed for a film role. The actors are always deadly serious and want high-profile Oscar winning roles.

The Interviewers are only interested in getting the word ‘Orange’ and ‘mobile phones’ into the script as often as possible, no matter how inappropriate or even historically inaccurate to the film. The advert usually ends with the actor storming out of the interview room. They are funny adverts.

Last night I enjoyed the best film I have seen for a long time. The Fantastic Mr Fox is a kids film based on a Roald Dahl book.

I’m too old to have read Roald Dahl, and I have no children, (so I didn’t catch the book second time around). But I did get the film references that were littered thoughout.

The film’s main influence was Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Kill Bill’. It had the same titled episode format, and the same dramatic rapid drum music, for the action sequences.

My first completed painting is an opening scene from the film Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick. Alex and his ‘Droogs’ are out looking for trouble, and unfortunately find a tramp sleeping in the subway. I won’t describe what happens next, but those of you who have seen the film know. 

I’ve always thought this to be a powerful image, with Kubrick filming from inside the subway looking out. This produces the extended shadows and contrast between dark and light.

Clockwork Orange is a notoriously violent film, that was withdrawn for public showing by the Director Stanley Kubrick.

The film could actually still be seen by adults all over the world – apart from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The ban only applied to the UK, as Kubrick considered our society to be too inherently violent for any art-form that might provoke further violence. 

He was concerned by newspaper reports of  ’copycat’ attacks after the release of Clockwork Orange.

He also received death threats, and was advised by British police to withdraw the film for his own safety!