(0546) Before we start, a warning that there is going to be a severe invasion of blondes and similar this morning … I’m also asking our severely tempted males to present Bardot clothed, as befits a 91 year old lady. Requested in jest but actually quite serious. Thank you. (0627)
5. Bardot as she might like to be remembered
4. The C of E is now but a demonic parody
3. Guess which country these are from
2. DAD at 1246
a) Brigitte Bardot: “Before, I would have said that I didn’t want to live in an Islamized France; today I say that I don’t want to die in an Islamized France.”
b) Frank Capra’s cinema masterpiece It’s a Wonderful Life has entertained film lovers for generations but a Canadian college professor sees the Christmas classic as full of “racism” and something to be condemned.
c) Elon Musk Criticizes Immigration Policies, Alleges Threat To Democracy, Says, ‘If This Is Not Reversed, Your Vote Will Mean Nothing’.
d) Drug trafficking: “We’re going to raise the fine to €500” for drug use, announces Emmanuel Macron.
(0217) Greetings on this “inbetween” Monday or just after the last weekend for the year, as Xer Irina called it. This might be one of the most vital posts yet at this site, due to the heterogenerational and heterogender nature of its sources. More below. (0254)
To understand, look beyond your own cohort
… but this does not mean DEI in the least … and certainly not Wokery
It means from our own national, cultural, westwide values, plus to repeat what was said above … there’s value in the heterogenerational and in the heterogender. Plus a willingness to take on board issues which a different cohort is raising. Or even eccentrics within cohorts.
My first stop is Svali in 2000 in Toronto, a San Diego lady … to paraphrase her, when asked how Them can be stopped, she replied that these people are so arrogant, they make mistakes. Svali was a baddy turned goody because of newfound faith, she was possibly war generation, her “illumined” parents of Frankfurt School age.
And so to Roobeedoo and this exchange last evening and this morning:
But it needs more than just inter this and that dialogue … it needs ethics and a moral compass before even getting down to the details … it needs systemic integrity.
A few are par for the course in plot, some are intriguing. Thing is, at just over 25minutes running time, there’s not a lot of plot you can fit in there. The commercials must have been horrendous … what, four minutes each half hour? The companies were ripping the public off something awful … at least the ads were in blocks and you could go to the kitchen for coffee or light up or whatever.
The Peter Gunns therefore needed a tad more than the usual mob boss gets taken down plot and by and large … there were intriguing endings, after one or two “misleads” along the way. This episode yet to be shown here, but I watched this afternoon, was not bad at all.
So I’ll review now with as few spoilers as poss. Showgirl is killed … shan’t say how but it’s spectacular … was it suicide, an accident, or as Peter thinks, natch … something more? With the mislead over with, the seemingly real culprit enters the fray and here’s where the writing earns plaudits … the central question is not quite resolved … audiences would certainly have discussed it afterwards.
Think I can let slip that it’s the same old same old about attraction and being played … more after I run the episode.
Awkward afternoon. Being about to cook late lunch, with two TV shorts up to give myself time to do that, there is also the HQ Sunday programme … films leading into jazz, later to start the evening politics.
Into this comes Steve with Minnesota and Nick Shirley, a big international topic today out there.
Brainwave strikes, such as it is. It’s been concerning me that UHC-WP is currently only being used for archives, important though those archives are. Remember though that it has the smallest disk space for saving material, needs to be used sparingly.
However, how about I run Steve’s expanding links there:
Going to run two shorts now (feature length film tomorrow) … the first via AKH, ta. Not altogether enamoured myself with Peter Vaughan (Grouty), though his acting chops are unquestioned. See how you go.
There was some town, can’t recall … Dearborn ? … and some young reporter was showing the centre … name stores closed, some boarded up, derelicts around, plus the “ordinary” homeless … town quite dead, business moved from the town. Sad. Demonrats. Imports.
Don’t worry (or do nae fash yersel’ in Swahili) … we’ll be back into the dark politics soon enough.
Finding yourself with time to reflect is not always a good thing at this age … it prevents things getting done … things you’re convinced at the time are necessary, but ultimate mean little. And if your life’s been all over the place and your memory barely patchy now, then surprises still take you from the past.
I was going to write sonething about the uncanny way … you can be sure it was never planned more than a short time ahead … the uncanny way I spent the ends of decades over here and the middles of decades downunder … also the way the 3rd year in a decade and the 8th tended to have major changes for me … not always, e.g. 2023 did not seem to have any major changes I know, but 2008 did.
I was going to write about that but realised it was boring. Another equally boring theme was the years through music … for example, I was at the MCG (scene of yesterday’s cricket farce), watching a Grand Final between Melbourne and Collingwood and there’s a distinct memory of the stand … these were multi tier concrete extrusions and being between two was daunting, also a long way from the playing field, in the northern ladies stand, also it was not an exciting game … also, someone had a radio on and some new song about Bread and Butter was playing … I thought it was catchy, the singer had a weird voice.
Which was weird in itself because my team was Leeds United with Don Revie, which itself was weird because we were Bingley Bradford based with Park Avenue being the team, soon to come into focus again with Billy Bremner and my fave Peter Lorimer. It’s a bit like this later attachment to Geelong, having never lived in that town.
Many fine things were laid upon my table and I was perfectly happy to enjoy them for years … often until changes were forced upon me … upon us … by changing times … or women. A look at my history shows long periods in one place, admittedly dotted with plane trips to other places to spend a few weeks.
Time machine cranked up … back to a few decades back … for some crazy reason, while I was generally on the water here, sailing:
… I was also, one day, at that football ground beside it at a major league reserves game between South Melbourne and Geelong and for some crazy reason, I thought it would be fun to help out the Gee cheer squad helping hold the megabanner on that turf … ten feet from where this captain was standing:
The key there is in his agility. In rugby, as my job was to bring down big men (I was open side flanker, reasoning that it was better to hit them than they hit me) … I relied heavily on the lumbering of big men, whereas I was fast off the mark, often avoiding haymakers, then getting in some of my own.
On this day, this man … 6’4″ and 240 lbs, was talking to his lot and then he turned, looked at me and kept looking. Errrr … thoughts of escape entered the head. Then he turned back to them … phew. Thinking later about what had interested him, I knew in “one point something seconds” he could have covered those ten feet and laid me out … maybe I did not seem like a cheer squad type, who knows?
Particular years fade into obscurity over time but certain incidents stand out. Why did I live through the Russian financial collapse, then come home to the British one? Stormy Petroleum I suppose. Why was I in north-eastern France in a farmhouse, the daughter showing me her pet duck and the following Friday we had her own homemade foie gras, never seeing her pet again? These things are sent to puzzle us.
Hubby of the lass I’ve known longest … since I was ten … he said I was a drifter … nope, I stay for longish periods … on the other hand, if something’s happening, I used to be in the middle of it.
