Where to begin? It’s probably boring to mention that I have procrastinated procrastinating again, so I’ll dive headfirst into the excuse: I’ve actually watched a fair amount of films in March, even if my heart was a little shattered by the fact that Titanic festival will only be happening in October, in spite of the fact that my April is always unreasonably busy due to the Easters and such, and October is frankly a better timing.  And of these films I watched, some have been pretty phenomenal, such as First Reformed, for the lead role of which Ethan Hawke would have gotten ALL the awards in the just one of our multiverses, The Wild Pear Tree, a relentlessly thought provoking and occasionally achingly beautiful three hour long monster from Nuri Bilge Ceylan and the Israeli surprise package Foxtrot, expertly walking the fine line between devastating and devastatingly funny.

While musing that Nuri Bilge Ceylan might just be one of my favourite directors ever I tried to make a list of the others, Jim Jarmusch landed on it, and then he promptly announced a sublime UFO of a zombie movie, and since I’m writing this criminally late you can at least enjoy the trailer, released on April Fool’s Day, here, with Adam Driver out-billmurraying Bill Murray, Bill Murray out-adamdrivering Adam Driver and Tilda Swinton just being extremely tildaswinton. Although I might have a note or two about Captain Marvel (as in, much as I love her NIN t-shirt and the PJ Harvey reference, Brie Larson just doesn’t completely cut the mustard for me), I am unabashedly crazy about the cat, for what is there not to like about a cat with an agenda. While I find flerkens a sublime idea, I am much less sure about Brat (in a very Russian approach, the whole movie is available on Youtube, though the auto-generated English subtitles might prove a wild ride) getting a late sequel. I absolutely loved the original films, particularly the first, but I just feel that so much of the character’s charm resided in the way Sergei Bodrov Jr. played him that no new take will ever do it justice. 

Musically speaking, we need to talk about Yannis Philippakis’s shirts (and the brilliant new Foals album, do indulge in the video for Cafe d’Athens here), The National will be both coming to Sziget and releasing a new album in May, of which the first single was unleashed in early March, Editors will be releasing a live album in early May as well, here’s a teaser and, this is really getting out of hand in terms of bands I love, Interpol also have some new material.  When it comes to discoveries, while I was very much aware of Agar Agar’s existence this below song about ruining a carpet really hit my soft spot and then there’s this little material about an absolute hero of mine. 

The football section begins with, you guessed it right, an ode to the world’s, uhm, fifth best player (no, I will never get over the fact that a bunch of buffoons managed to vote for Luka Modrić basically because they got bored of just how good Messi is and wanted a player who, for a change, hasn’t played a decent game since last summer), continues with some brilliant news for women’s football, (Juventus also played-and won- a major derby against Fiorentina in the jam packed men’s Allianz stadium a week later),  goes on with more good news for women’s football, takes a detour on the pleasant alley of hating on PSG, and culminates with the most important topic of them all, Zinedine Zidane’s jeans. 

The travel section kicks off with some Viennese cinema foyers (our own recent forays into the imperial capital can be found here, alongside some rotten phone photography down under), covers some Eastern architectural running routes, (though I must mention that, fun as urban running might sound, I a still put off by routes that are directly alongside car traffic)  and then crosses the continent to Wales and a travel destination that fits me like a glove.  Next up, the currently fashionable Bauhaus love, first with some intel on one of the movement’s founders, Walter Gropius and then with a Bauhaus makeover of famous logos. 

Moving on to photography, here’s a fascinating piece about Nigeria’s biggest city, Lagos (yet not its capital, in one of my major defeats at geographical trivia, the capital being Abuja), another African exploration, this time in Kibera, Nairobi’s biggest shantytown, a material about the youth of Belfast (speaking of young Northern Irish people, I may be a bit late on the bandwagon, but do by all means watch Derry Girls, the first sitcom in ages I found to be genuinely and relentlessly funny), we then cross the sea to Scotland with Raymond Depardon’s vision of Glasgow in the 1980s, pay a visit to Tehran as seen through a woman’s eyes and finally here’s a selection from the work of several female war photographers plus a piece that focuses on the first of them to die in the field, German born Gerda Taro. 

So as not to close on an overly sad note, in the bits and bobs section, here’s some trivia about one of my favourite TV series growing up, (it’s Quantum Leap, if I must pique your interest), an inevitable Murakami interview for this not so literary edition, a guide to something called the Bulgarian cosmic disco scene, and finally the collection of trash phone photography that got seriously out of hand and features, among others, a whisky sour from Bar Pharma, a wood painting of Kenny Dalglish which seems to have a very positive influence on our title challenge and some glorious pastels de nata from the recently opened Lisboa Pastry and Bakery.