I went with Dug and Tania to an event that was very much a Lecture List kind of thing last night.

The NFT is showing a retrospective of films by John Krish, who's a top British documentary maker. Among other things, he also worked on The Avengers, and he made an interesting contrast in his introduction between the tantrums and problems when he was on set with Steed et al and the sanity of working with schoolkids.

The films were great in themselves but it was also fascinating to look back in time. Most of the kids were just a little bit previous to my generation but I certainly remembered the various attitudes and looks and fashion statements. Also fascinating to see the institutions as they were then and compare with my own experiences as a kid then and as a parent now. One of them - 'I Want To Go To School' - was commissioned by the NUT and designed to let parents know what their kids got up to at school. One way things have changed is that most of us know exactly what our kids do at primary school these days and, at least at our place, we're welcome to go in and help as much as we want. (Not in France, though, as Tania pointed out).

There are a million things to say about how the films were put together, the documentary style and etc. and etc. But right now I've got some shopping to do.

You can read more about John Krish in this piece which was in the Guardian the other day.

B-)