Sundancing

To the right of the Gormley sculpture is part of the cable car system that will be operational later this year. Looking to the other side of the O2 pier, I could see the tips of the Olympic Park structures. It's all go for the Olympics!

I was at the O2 (formerly known as the Dome) to see two film at the Sundance Film Festival, which has travelled to London for the first time. I felt it was a shame for this festival of independent films, usually held in a beautiful countryside setting in Utah, to be held in the O2. Everything within the O2 is ugly - all manufactured and sponsored and plastic. In between the two films, Fred and I went for a walk and I was happy to see a goldfinch perched on one of the small trees outside the building - hooray!

In the O2, it was heaving with life, mostly teenagers wearing towering heels and shorts with bare legs. I was puzzled as to why this seething mass of young things was pouring into the building, but then I saw that a bloke called Example was playing in the main arena. Disappointingly, they weren't going to the film festival. Once up in the festival area, I overheard someone saying the festival had spoilt their night out because they'd wanted to see one of the mainstream films at the cinema, but the cinema was showing only Sundance films. Gah!

I saw two fantastic films. The first, Under African Skies, is a documentary about the making of Paul Simon's 'Graceland' with interviews with Paul Simon and all those who played on the album and made it happen. It talked through the controversies of making the album during the apartheid when there was a cultural embargo on South Africa. It was an incredibly moving film and I had a tear in my eye on more than one occasion. The songs themselves are wonderful on the album, but even more so when the story behind them is known. This film is truly wondrous and I'm sure it will have a nationwide release at some point this year.

The second film Chasing Ice is a powerful documentary on the terrifying realities of climate change. After seeing the film, I know that it's happening and doing so very, very fast. The film documents a photographer's survey of various glaciers in the northern hemisphere using cameras taking a picture every hour during the day. At one point, part of a glacier the size of Manhattan but three times the height of the skyscrapers breaks off into the ocean. It's a sobering sight.