Sinnerman

I don't think I ever put soul music here. Anyway, since I watched The Great Train Robbery I have Sinner Man or Sinnerman in my head, as it was featured in the drama. Even though it was probably not conscious, the beat mimics very well the sound of a train running. And it is a good ten minutes song, just for this it deserves respect in a day and age when music is so manufactured and attention span of audiences is ridiculously short. Because I fell in love with it, I decided to upload it here. This is the version of Nina Simone, maybe the most famous one and the one featured in the drama.

About bowler hats

On my way back to work, after I left the train station, I saw a man going to it, wearing a bowler hat. You see rarely people wearing bowler hats these days, except eccentrics, and this man looked very much like one. I had seen him from time to time, dressed like a Bohemian dandy, the bowler hat is his trademark. It struck me that I recently saw bowler hats: I (re)watched recently The Great Train Robbery, where they are featured a good deal. I associate bowlers mainly with another movie. I am referring of course to A Clockwork Orange. For Alex, who wears it in the movie, and for the Bohemian guy I saw, the bowler hat is now a sign of marginality, their refusal to conformity. Ironic, as it was maybe one of the most conform hat ever invented, worn through history by all social classes. It does have some sober elegance in it, and if hats were ever back in fashion it could go with everything. Except maybe my head: it would look far too round with a bowler hat, I think. But the bowler hat can also be a sign of oddity, even have sinister tones: Oddjob in Goldfinger wears one, it is both his trademark and his weapon of choice, as the hat's rim is doubled with a circle of metal that is strong enough to break a neck. Alex and Oddjob show that it can appeal to sadistic thugs. All the same, I wish bowler hats were back in fashion. I find it somewhat sad that it is now a sign of eccentricity.

Of crimes and trains

I watched yesterday on the BBC The Great Train Robbery, based on, well, the great train robbery of 1963. It created a bit of controversy, as some people thought it was glorifying criminals. But I think the story had to be told and is very relevant. Because it made UK crime history. Heck, it made history, period. And however delicate the subject matter, I believe in the importance of memory. That, and I find such historical crime drama, history turned into fiction, to be cathartic. I loved it anyway, loved the top class acting and the characterization, the setting, everything. It was quality. And tonight there is the second part, showing the following investigation.

And watching it, something struck me about their motivations: I wonder if the robbers did not do it because they were going to rob a train and not a bank, that they didn't do it at least partially because it was an exciting setting. A train, in motion, that you need to stop, to ride a little bit even, then to empty of its content. They had to take into the account railways, signals, workers, a whole web of elements that make train travel possible and that don't exist in a bank. I think their was a bit of boyish mischief in their crime. Are there any children not fascinated, to a degree, by trains? And so many remain fascinated by trains as adults. I know I am. So I wonder if that was not their motivation: to play with a toy.