Meddle

Dear Daniel,

Woody Allen's new film is called Vicky Christina Barcelona. From that trailer alone, I wouldn't bother. But it features the combined talents of That One from Lost in Translation, That One from Vanilla Sky and That One from No Country for Old Men, plus That One Who Used to Write Hilarious Social Satires of New York New-Wavers. My brother dismisses it as Woody Allen trying again to write around a particular city, like he did in Match Point. I don't know what he's talking about: I don't remember Match Point. He says that's probably for the best.

Did we watch "Jamon Jamon" together during an ill-conceived film marathon at Sheffield Uni? I definitely remember "Golden Balls" which was supposed to be the sequel, right? I think you told me that. Well, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem were together in that, being all porno. Did you see No Country for Old Men? Not at all porno...

I can't tell you why Vicky Christina Ronaldo reminds me of Little Boots in this public arena (and I use the word "public" quite wrongly) but it's a decent enough way to introduce you to the UK sound of 2009 (copyright everyone), a talented young lady from Blackpool via Leeds who also happens to be another of my friends from the Leeds music scene who has leapt onto the rung of the music ladder where people leaning idly from upstairs windows can see you for the first time and start asking your name and listening carefully to the answer. "Hello, interesting new person," they say, "would you like some tea?"

Dear James,

Great stuff. You haven't made tea for Little Boots, have you? It'll put her right off the music biz before she's even got started. That is very good stuff, a bit like Ben Folds when he plays Smoke, only not like that very much. And also a bit like Victoria Wood, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. What's that little box she's playing with? Have you got one?

Match Point is the one where the posh chap who's supposed to be Irish kills the one from Lost In Translation and gets away with it, via a clumsy tennis metaphor. Apparently there's a ghost in the final scene; I've yet to see it. Sadly, it introduced a whole new generation over here to Woody Allen, as I sat groping my Hannah and Her Sisters DVD.

We did see Golden Balls together at the union cinema, I enjoyed Jamon Jamon later that summer with the curtains closed. I'm concerned that you think you were with me at the time. I'm now thinking of you in the erotic garlic scene. "¿Te gusta el ajo?" "Mmm, ¡venga!" That kind of thing would have lost No Country For Old Men the Oscar.