We Need to Talk About Kevin

 

That was an excellent book by Lionel Shriver and later transferred very well into a movie with Tilda Swinton as Kevin’s un-loved, at all, ever, mother; not a hint of bonding as she was constantly mentally tortured by her strange son. The moment when I felt for her most was when he waited for her to finish a skilful exercise in home decoration where she has used antique maps and the very disturbed Kevin squirted the room with ink. The school massacre was on the way and did eventually happen after he had taken up archery, having read Robin Hood. Weird book, weird film, and both totally absorbing.

 

My husband believes that I am irresistibly drawn to the name Kevin and there may be something in that because for a start my favourite actor is without doubt Kevin Spacey. My husband Steve is in any case never allowed to choose which movie we got to see, although he pretty much make most other choices from dinner, to work and training, but he will know for sure that we are going to the cinema if Kevin is in anything at all. That, last week, included going to a 1 pm showing in Chichester of Nine Lives.
 

 

 

I had to apologise to my man about that one afterwards. The film is about a mega rich, business man, who Christopher Walkden turns into a cat until he learns how to behave to his family. There is a lot of funny cat stuff in it but really, it is a film for nine to twelve year old girls. I can’t be more honest than that, but like me, other Spacey devotees will go and feel equally flimped, because it is mostly Kevin doing the voice of the cat. He and Walkden could have made the movie in their coffee break. It is mildly amusing but was a complete waste of my valuable time and of course my poor long suffering husbands even more precious time.
 

 

 

Steve also wonders why Kevin Spacey is so adored by women; he sees that he is a great actor but wonders about the charisma thing. I ask myself that too sometimes. He is one of the more famous wearers of an obvious and frankly awful ‘Rug’, but we forgive him for that and still find him very appealing, even though all we fans must be sure that he would not have the same feeling for any of us girls and we don’t care about that either. Yet multi talented he unquestionably is; Singer, dancer, and one of the very best impressionists and very funny in interviews and on chat shows. As a Facebook user, I admit unashamedly, that I get posts from a Kevin Spacey closed group, where fans post photos of him in their favourite films or when they are autograph and selfie hunting at a stage door after one of his masterful performances. The FB page has little if anything to do with the man himself. My own best movies of this icon of the movie world are all much, much better then the Nine Lives limp effort, the list that I recommend is in no special order: The Life of David Gale, KPAX, The Shipping News, The Usual Suspects, American Beauty, Beyond the Sea and Recount.
 

 

The next Kevin is, Egg and Bacon as my husband calls him; Kevin Bacon who is also and excellent actor as in; A Few Good Men, Mystic River, The River Wild, The Woodsman and of course the brilliant TV series, The Followers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last film star Kevin, is the one that pops up in any post dinner game of ‘Claims to Fame’, since on one of the three occasions I competed in Ironman Hawaii, the first person to come to see me after the finish line was UK race manger Nicola Lunt, who I met in the earliest years of my triathlon career, but Nicola did not say ‘Well done Daf’ as we stood in the greatest, almost midnight moments under the big Banyan tree on Ali’i Drive in Kona. No. She said, ‘Kevin Costner watched you finish!’ He was filming Waterworld, not far from there.

 

 

 

The last Kevin here today is not a movie star. He is in the close circle of friends that we train regularly with, Steve more than me actually, because they very often have already got a short bike ride in before I actually get out on the road. Kevin Pearson is also one of a three of four times a week swim training group at 6.30 am and during the winter months sharing loads of turbo training sessions. I think of Kevin as a dear friend though he would hate to hear me say that. There is nothing ‘soft’ about Kevin; he is as straight speaking as it is possible to get and if ever I wanted the truth from anybody I would ask Kevin. Last Sunday, he came down to watch Worthing Triathlon and when we were talking about the rough sea swim section afterwards, I had to smile when he told me that he had watched me in the sea and said that I was dead easy to spot with ‘That left arm of yours… spot that a mile away’! Another training friend, Steve Lardy Jones once asked me, how come I got on with Kevin when he was so blunt. My dad was a straight speaking Yorkshire man and like Kevin; if I asked him if my bum looked big in this…. He would tell me ‘Yes, it certainly does’. I know where I stand with Kev; and that is how I like my friends to be, honest. 

 


Here is a shot taken at one of our annual end of year long turbo sessions in Arundel.  its a wonder everybody is smiling since I think this session was the six hour jobbie. That is Kevin Pearson if the centre front with Andy Ward to one side. In the row behind them you find Steve and I plus Nigel Burnett and next to him, I think that is Jon Ropers ear!

 

This photo was taken at one of the many Human Race Events on the sports calendar. This is at Dorney Lake, Eton, where the three of us had been competing in the BTF National Sprint Championships that year.


As is the form that you would hear at The Oscars... Stephen is wearing his old Ironman Austria sleeveless bike shirt that doesn't match his pants, whilst Kevin is wearing his Tuff Fitty Triathlon Club kit.