Strange to think I stopped reading for a good couple of months.
What have I been doing?!
I suppose internet crap. I really should make it a resolution to spend my time more wisely.
But will I?
Still I read 25 (and started several more), so could have been worse.
Finished: The Bullet that Missed - Richard Osman
Whatever you think of Meghan Markle, Jeremy Clarkson's recent comments in a tabloid were so over the line.
What a grossly misogynistic sentiment to express, basically rubbing one out at the idea of her naked and humiliated in public, the grim old perv.
It's funny how these old white men are slathering themselves silly hating on an attractive young black woman.
Be critical of her words and actions if you disagree with her, but this frothing barely covering your own semi-hard dicks fantasising her destruction - well, it shows who the fuck you are.
Very disturbing that this stuff gets published, even in utter rags.
For hand-wash.
It's a lot.
I mean, I like vanilla, I feel indifferent to shea butter: I'm not sure those *are* the ingredients of happiness.
Are we supposed to wash and ho-ho?
I wonder if the point of politics these days is just to exhaust everyone.
Just when you think it can't possibly get worse, it does.
Spitting Image got cancelled again, and I'm not surprised. This governmental shitshow has been beyond parody for a long time.
Need to do something cheery as it's winter, it's cold, I'm getting old, and something something about gold.
I have things to look forward to really, and I have a job offer for the New Year, which should end my days of a long commute. I'm a bit scared about it because it's a change of direction, but the benefits are obvious.
Call me a miserable bastard, if you will, but I'm unimpressed by Asda's new initiative to offer the over-60s soup, a roll and unlimited hot drinks for a £1 through the winter.
Because Asda are again the lowest paying of the Big 4 supermarkets as reported by Grocery Gazette.
"According to the trade union, Asda has also cancelled a driver premium payment which was meant to last until December, leaving Asda delivery drivers at an industry low.
“It should be a source of massive shame for Asda they are now the worst paying of the Big 4,” GMB national officer Nadine Houghton said.
“Only last week Asda refused a meeting with GMB representatives to discuss the important issue of pay.
“While other companies are trying to protect hard-working employees from the cost of living crisis, Asda seems happy to sit back while its workers struggle.”
So yeah, offering the older generation a warm place to sit and a bit of food/drink seems socially responsible, but it's heavily undercut by their actions towards their workforce.
The mark-up on hot drinks is huge as well, so giving out tea and coffee is no great shakes. Ditto soup.
If you want to be socially responsible, Asda - pay your low-income employees better.
One of the problems I have, with this lengthy mourning of the Queen we've just had, is that, when you lose someone, it feels like the world should stop. It's so so weird and alienating in your grief that it does not. The classic poem of Auden's "Stop all the clocks" is meaningful to so many for that reason, I guess.
And that just pisses me off to be honest.
Let's not even go into the wastefulness of the money spent on her funeral and all the bollockry surrounding it, nor the fact there's no inheritance tax for Charles.
I am increasingly in favour of abolition of the monarchy.
At least you can vote out elected heads of state.
So, the Queen is dead.
I was actually a bit sad about it - I think it's the sweet old lady vibe you get looking at the last picture of her, and I think it's more or less normal to relate things like this to your own experiences of bereavement. I empathise with humans losing humans.
But she lived a life of immense privilege with revolting amounts of wealth and status, while the monarchy is barely questioned and now people make endless mouth-noises to venerate her for making an (arguably) decent job as a figurehead.
And now it's going to be wall to wall Royal rubbish for a fortnight. (And here I am adding to the roar).
I reckon she hung on to see Boris out the door, although seeing who comes next probably was enough to finish anyone off.
I was really pissed off by this little nugget in the BBC live stream leading up to the announcement
It's a terrifying "new" cabinet of hideous (morally) old Tory faces to go with the "new" Prime Minister of just the same or worse policies.
The fuel price cap isn't really a cap, is it? It's a target. Or a tracker.
I have no idea what the point of Ofgem is.
I expect they're getting that a lot.
Finished: All my mother's lovers - Hana Masad
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Quite pleased with that.
Reading Sandi Toksvig's open letter to the Arch-Bish, I felt the beginnings of tears in my eyes. I mean, I cry at the drop of the hat, but it's so disheartening that the Church feels the need to come out with this stuff.
I mean, we all know that's what they believe, don't we? Love the sinners, hate the sin, isn't it? The fact that the Church shifts to be more liberal and inclusive in many ways doesn't change those fundamentals. You can want to be accepted and these days the Church will go some way to envelop you in its squishy folds, but somewhere in there, is the solid wall of an old book with a long convention of understanding of its stories, telling you the way you love is wrong, if you're gay.
I like when the Church stands up for things I agree with, of course, like when they spoke out against the "I know, let's send asylum seekers to Rwanda, that'll give our racist fuck-face core voters full-on robot chubbies for us" policy.
So maybe I'm a hypocrite. Talk about what I want you to talk about, dammit!
Sorry about the multiple, somewhat mismatched grabs of her letter, it offends my sensibilities too, but it's close enough and I'm not so anal I can be bothered to work out perfect matching this sunny Sunday morning. I'm just trying to avoid linking to Twatter, as it is not a pleasing place to visit for me. Both depressing and enraging, and a massive time-suck if I go into that rabbit-hole. Stay out! Stay out!
Link to Guardian article: For every £1 fetched by a male artist’s work, one by a woman gets a mere 10p – and its value plummets further if she signs it. The creator of Recalculating Art, a shocking new radio exposé, reveals her findings
Sad to lose Bernard Cribbins, who narrated the Wombles when I was a kid. Hope he's buried with a bowler.
I often think about and rewatch Black Mirror episodes because they're well done and have interesting themes & ideas.
"Crocodile" is one of those I rewatch occasionally, mostly because of the atmosphere, mesmerising setting of Iceland and the two female leads, Kiran Sonia Sawar and Andrea Riseborough.
Spoilers (despite it having been out for about 5 years, where have you been?:
The main difficulty I have with the story, however, is the complete brush-over of the physique of Andrea as Mia when it comes to the acts she carries out. It requires huge suspension of disbelief to swallow the way she murders her ex/old friend. Andrea is very slight, stick-thin really, and he is an average bloke, bigger, taller, he could brush her off like a fly. Admittedly he whacks his head on the floor, which is possibly the death-blow anyway, but the struggle beforehand just seems so unlikely. But OK, through his ill-luck/confused passivity, she takes him out.
Then she has to get his body onto a trolley and then into the boot of her car in the hotel car-park, all without being seen, then drag his body from the car to where she disposes of it. He's got to weigh at least a third more than she does, he's literally dead-weight on the ground, and she does not look like she works out, (sorry Andrea, in this, you look like you control your weight (if you do), solely by diet, not exercise). I know adrenalin can help, but you have to ignore a lot of practical issues here. It's not credible. They don't even show any elements of the enormous physical struggle it would be for her to do any of that, possibly because it would have shown the cracks up even more.
Reading about the episode in Wikipedia today, apparently it was originally written with a male protagonist in mind, which makes sense.
I'm all in favour of women being given these sorts of roles; the Alien movies would not have been iconic if Ripley had been played by a man as initially planned and not by the amazing Sigourney Weaver.
But I don't think it does stories, and women as a class, any good to ignore where the character would actually need to do physical things differently than a man would, if she would. She could still Do the Things, and I really really want to see that, but she might need a fulcrum.
I want to see her find that fulcrum or workaround and use it.
I mean you can see these movies or series where the bad ass woman character is in a direct fight with a man or multiple men, and it's generally selling us a lie. Unless she has the superpower of enhanced strength or if she is advantaged in some other way, in the most cases the man would outclass her in speed and strength.
It just needs a bit of thought. Yes to women in action (or sociopathic murdering) roles and doing All The Things, but let's give a passing nod to the challenges.
It's a false equality to pretend there's no difference.
And no, this is not saying men are "better", cos if that's all that matters, well, a bullock is both swifter and stronger than any man.
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I went to B&Ms this morning to buy some screening to go in the back-garden, because the neighbours have had a relative staying in a tent in their garden for about a month and it feels like there's no privacy. It's the cheapest solution I can think of, although I'm not expecting it to survive long due to living in quite a windy place. If it gives me the summer to be able to wander out and not feel like I'm in a fishbowl, that'll do me.
Anyway, I was a bit internally surly and getting these 4 bags of screening that were quite heavy and awkward to the till bit by bit. And this family came to the queue while I was getting the things there, and I thought they were going to sorta jump the line (which only really consisted of me getting my pile together). I wasn't expecting anyone to wait for me so wouldn't have minded if they had. But they didn't. And then after I lugged one of the things to the car and came back to get the others, I met the father and his son bringing me the other three, and I almost cried.
So lovely of them. I might nearly cry again remembering it!
And I felt bad, because I'd noticed them going round and had been horrified by their choice of a great roll of astroturf, (which is shit for the environment and just generally awful stuff). But I guess they're probably doing the best they can to make an outside space nice for their kids, and I shouldn't be so rotten.
It's a good news day so far - 30-odd Tory resignations and a delegation to tell BoJo to go. Can only hope he actually listens.
Surely he must, they're dropping like flies?
Although his shamelessness is apparently endlessless.
Finished: Finders keepers - Belinda Bauer & Made to Kill - Adam Christopher
I'm planning on camping for a few nights to save money on my commute as I need to be in the office every day.
This seemed like a good idea at the time. I guess if it's horrible I can abandon the scheme and take the hit on petrol.
I wish I could afford an electric car in order to save money. Or maybe, better yet, get a more local job.
Finished: Amongst our weapons - Ben Aaronovitch
So, I'm reliving my youth by rocking out to Rage Against The Machine (while doing the housework, such rebellion) and thinking how little has changed "some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses".
We move forwards, we get pushed back.
Then I hurt my back hoovering, of all things.
The Tory rain of sleaze continues unabated.
It's seldom one finds oneself agreeing with an ex-Tory MP (Neil Parish) ousted for watching porn in Parliament, but it really isn't fair that Chris Pincher hopes to merely resign from the Deputy Chief Whip position and keep the rest of his career, after groping two men while on a drunken binge.
This is not even the first occasion of non-consensual touching this guy has been caught for.
I hope that the men on the receiving end of his unwanted attentions take it further. The bloke shouldn't be in government. Neither of them should be.
I was reminded today about this long past minor incident: I brought up with the man teaching First Aid at work that women can have different symptoms with heart attacks to men (I said something fairly qualified and not contradicting him, just a question really) and he poo-pooed it and shut me down.
Grrrr. The injustice.
<Goes back in time and pursues him to the ends of the earth to make him admit I was in fact correct>
One of those click-bait google notifications came up saying
"Piers Morgan's heart-rending divorce from ..."
reality?
After his crowing about his embarrassing (for him) interview with Mick Lynch?
Well, it would have been amusing if it had been. Disappointingly he's getting divorced or something. Probably not disappointing for her.
Tony Benn's questions for the powerful
"Wines protected by the devil"
I find that a puzzling advertising hook. It pops up in ad-breaks on the Sony Movies channel.
I'm just like, eh? Protected from what? Isn't the devil supposed to be bad and deceptive and not known for protecting stuff? Is he protecting it from people who want to drink it? Won't he be pissed if you drink something he's protecting? Or does he want you to drink it and then he'll protect you (from what, considering he's supposed be not so much of a nice guy) while it's sloshing around inside you? What about when you pee?
So many questions that I don't really care about.
Finished: The Dark Hours - Michael Connelly & The Whole Truth - Cara Hunter
"What else are we to do? Are we to plead, are we to beg? We want to bargain for our futures, we want to negotiate, and if we're not bargaining we have to beg, and I don't want any working class people in this country to have to beg their employers for a decent living." - Mick Lynch
He's just such a refreshing change from the drivelling gutless politicians and he's allowed many journalists make absolute fools of themselves interviewing him. It is very pleasing.
Unedifying!
That was the word I was struggling to find to use in my last post. I'm glad to have finally had it rise to the front of the brain, as it was really bugging me.
It's difficult to google for "that word, you know, the one that starts with un or is it in?" and the thesaurus wasn't helpful.
Maybe it's perimenopause.
I am very pleased to have located my lost word, however. Did not expect it to take 3 days.
There's been a lot, a LOT, in the news and social media about Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard.
I don't know the truth of it. I made sure not to follow it properly.
I do know both men and women can be domestic abusers. I do know that there are no perfect victims who always act within social expectations of how a victim should react. I do know that a person who is the victim can sometimes also return the abuse.
I think it's madness that the whole thing was televised and the jury were not sequestered.
And essentially both of them lost, in my opinion, and so did onlookers and cheerleaders and side-takers - the whole spectacle of it was horrifying and depressing.
I used to like Depp as an actor, but whether he abused her or not, the quotes I've seen from messages he sent were vile and misogynistic, and my opinion of him is through the floor. Can't say it's done a lot for my opinion of Paul Bettany either - I mean, grim.
I find the YouGov ratings thing quite bizarre.
"I happen to like fjords, I think they give a lovely baroque feel to a continent" - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
And what possible use is a context-free thumbs up or thumbs down of some random nobody like myself on an entire country to anyone?
But anyway, that said, I did spend some time rating Tory politicians without knowing much about them. Ha! I daresay some of them have redeeming qualities too. Maybe.
Finished: The Couple at No.9 - Claire Douglas
I've just finished the new episodes of Love Death & Robots on Netflix, which were pretty great. Scalzi wrote another for his 3 robots, and that was fun, although not hugely subtle in its message. They were all engaging, some stronger than others, but yes, well worth a watch.
And then there was the episode "Jibaro". Whoa. Loved it. Stunning visually, mythic, dark.
Spoilers: A war party take a rest beside a lake. Jibaro, one of the knights, a deaf man, goes to the shore to drink and picks a piece of gold out of the water. This stirs the spirit of the lake, which manifests as a bejewelled siren, who screams to call the knights and their party racing into the water, killing each other as well as they hurtle to their deaths in the depths. All, except the bewildered deaf man, who sees it all and rides away in a panic to escape.
He is knocked unconscious from his horse and is tracked by the spirit when he continues on foot. He falls asleep on the riverbank and the spirit, fascinated by him, approaches and stays with him, draping herself over him seductively. When he awakes, she flees, but when he grabs her arm, a ruby comes off, embedded in his hand. He pursues her and finally she stops at the top of a waterfall, where finally she approaches him and they kiss, leaving his mouth bloody, as she is covered in gems. It grows passionate and he gets on top of her, when he attacks her and knocks her unconscious. On the shore, he rips the jewels and gold from her body, rolling her into the water when he is done. He then leaves with the jewels in his bundled up cloak.
The siren's body washes back into the lake where the water turns to blood. Jibaro has stopped to drink again, not noticing the water turning to blood as he does so, and his hearing is cured. He panics to be hearing for the first time in his life and runs hectically. The siren rises from the lake, bloody and battered, and screams to call him, puppet-like, dancing, into the lake to his death. She sinks to her knees, a shadow of what she was. It's maybe a metaphor for what people do to nature, that could offer so much and they would rather strip it and defile it.
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I don't understand the whole, "hey, let's raise a statue to this person" thinking. What is that all about?
I don't think there can be many people whose legacy is entirely unquestionable and worthy. Everyone has faults and flaws, makes mistakes or worse, and their actions may not stand up to the scrutiny of later years. I mean, FFS, there was one of Saville at one point, wasn't there?
Putting someone on a pedestal, literal or figurative, is a bad idea, in their lifetime, and after it. In my opinion.
I'm not against statues generally, just think they should represent ideas, not specific people.
And bloody hell, this is a statue of Thatcher they've put up.
"The last cooking session we did, which we publicised - where we had four MPs here - we made I think 180 meals for fifty quid, which is 30p each." - Lee Anderson
Right, so in fact it seems he's talking about bulk cooking, while in a commercial or institutional kitchen.
Having bulk-bought the ingredients with £50 all at once. and having cooked the food with someone else's power supply, where exactly does he think a low-income family would store their 180 identical meals?
Finished: After the End - Clare Mackintosh OMG!
Lately we've been watching a lot of Korean tv series on Netflix. Every night we have tea and watch an episode together.
Really loved All of Us are Dead, which I think I've said before. LOVED it.
After that, we watched Sweet Home, which was also very good. An apocalypse in which some humans turn into monsters of their own desires. The monsters reminded me a bit of Harryhausen's style.
Next up was Extracurricular, which was about a high-school boy secretly pimping. Not as much fun, but engaging.
I really really loved The Uncanny Counter, which featured a group of reapers dealing with evil spirits possessing people and supposedly keeping out of human affairs, but ending up needing to fight that battle too. The main characters and their interactions were just adorable, the way they teased each other and supported each other, and the series was a whole lot of fun.
Then we started watching Alice, but it was a real struggle. Park Jin-gyeom's mother is killed mysteriously, but as an adult, he is confused when he meets someone identical to her. It's time-travel, and it's convoluted. There's a lot of emoting with background music, and a lot of not actually talking honestly to each other. It seems a bit of a theme in these series that characters stay silent instead of being open when actually it would be incredibly helpful. There was a disturbing romantic undercurrent between the two and a rivalry between his wannabe-girlfriend & his probable-mother. Park is supposed to suffer from alexithymia, which I guess might explain some of the strange dynamics, but it was just a bit boggling and it seemed like he was on his way to being his own father. I don't know if that was the outcome, as this was a series we decided to abandon. I'd basically given up four episodes ago and started faffing on my laptop, which means I was no longer reading the subtitles so had lost the plot, while T was more persistent. But, eh, it was just a bit much, that whole dynamic, so we were relieved to agree to call it a day.
Now we're onto The Guest, which is about evil spirits possessing people again, and we're really enjoying it so far. I love the arse-kicking female detective and the shaman particularly. I've also enjoyed seeing some of the Korean countryside as most of what we've watched has been set in cities, but this one has spent some time in the rural village our protagonist grew up in too.
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There have been a few stories I've noticed lately about people moving into social housing and being shocked & depressed that the carpets and floor coverings have been ripped out, by policy (example - BBC article). As I understand it, this is to prevent infestations continuing and because it's quicker and easier to turn the property around for its next tenants than attempting to clean it.
This was the case when we moved into our council house a good few years ago. In fact, I still don't have carpets/floor coverings in some of my rooms because I've never had the money (or arguably, I've chosen to spend it in other ways). I am very proud of my living room carpet that I saved up for and paid for installation as well (luxury!) only a couple of years ago. In the meantime, we had had a large rug bought from a B&M or similar, and painted or varnished the floorboards where visible. I guess I'm lucky that the house has floorboards, but the utility room is concrete, and that I painted that as well. In the early days, I wanted most urgently to carpet the kids' rooms and we were given some by a neighbour for one, and managed to buy some for the other after a while. Once that was done, making do until I could afford better was fine.
I don't think it's a wrong policy - I've lived in some flats and moved into some places that felt bloody filthy and made my skin crawl, and some of these were supposedly cleaned for rental. And into places with fleas. Ugh!
I worked for a Housing association and saw some pictures of houses being turned round for the next tenants and they can be left in a horrific state - there was no chance of salvaging carpet out of those.
I'd rather a bare floor than someone else's dirt.
Plus removing carpet and floor coverings yourself is a big job, especially if you're on your own with kids - so if the carpets were left, you might want to get rid of them, but it wouldn't be practical or affordable for you, and then you'd be stuck with it.
At least with a bare floor, you can get it really clean, and you can chuck some paint down and some rugs as you go on.
I'm just really grateful that we were lucky enough to get this tenancy and the chance to make it our home. Yes, it's not perfect, and I'm still working on getting it how I want it, more than a decade later, cos I'm on a low income despite working full-time.
Other people have it far worse, of course, than I ever did, but hard as it is, I do think a clean slate of a house is better.
I sometimes see a road sign "picking up your litter risks roadworkers lives". And I wonder, if that's the case, and yes, it must be the case, how can the employer possibly justify the activity when they're doing their risk assessment paperwork. Obviously it needs doing, but..
Finished (yesterday) : Head On - John Scalzi
It's so painfully obvious that the government's plan to send "illegal people" to Rwanda is a "dead-cat" to distract from the scandals of Partygate and non-dom status etc. It's inhumane. Rwanda has a poor human rights record the UK has itself criticised. It's massively expensive.
And it's so depressing that they believe, and may well be right, that appealing to racism, xenophobia and basically the lowest, nastiest side of the electorate will serve to distract us and save them.
Vile.
Sunak in parliament December 2021: "No, I did not attend any parties"
Johnson in interview December 2021: "I certainly broke no rules".
I'm pretty cross about fixed penalty fines for BoJo and Rishi.
I'm pleased the Met have actually had the balls to follow through, as my confidence in them is incredibly low, given their recent history.
- the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer nicknamed "the rapist",
- this other rapist,
- behaviour towards protesters at a vigil for Sarah Everard,
- and spreading round snapshots of murdered women.
I'll stop there, as there's more. Just a ghastly, disgusting list of failures and an apparent culture of misogyny and racism.
But here we are, this they pursued, and I am glad about it.
Sunak in parliament December 2021: "No, I did not attend any parties"
Johnson in interview December 2021: "I certainly broke no rules".
In a statement, Cindy Southworth, Meta’s head of women’s safety, said: “While we disagree with many of the CCDH’s conclusions, we do agree that the harassment of women is unacceptable.
“That’s why we don’t allow gender-based hate or any threat of sexual violence, and last year we announced stronger protections for female public figures.
“Messages from people you don’t follow go to a separate request inbox where you can either block or report the sender, or you can turn off message requests altogether.
“Calls from people you don’t know only go through if you accept their message request and we offer a way to filter abusive messages so you never have to see them.”
But this isn't doing anything to address the actual problem, which is the people sending abusive messages and rape threats to women in the public eye. The problem isn't these women seeing the abuse. (I mean, obviously they don't want to see it, but it's the wrong direction to be tackling it from, surely?)
Instead, could there be some sort of filtering before sending to a stranger? ie. anything containing obvious swear-words/misogynistic/racist words gets rejected immediately and you get a message to the effect of "This message content does not pass our standards for civil communications. If you intend to contact other customers of ours, please revise what you want to say and ensure it fits with our standards as set out here [link to suitable policy]. Repeated flagging of your account for inappropriate messages will lead to a suspension or ban."
When sending to a stranger, perhaps you get a caution as you press send: "Are you sure you want to send this message? We want to build constructive dialogues and healthy online communities, if this is not in this spirit, then do not send. If the content of your message breaks our community standards [policy here], you risk losing your account with us and potentially legal action." or something?
So, the Grammys - what a shambles. What a disgusting shameful slap in the face.
I'm hugely revolted by the "rehabilitation" of rich, statused, usually white men.
A couple of days ago, we had fucking "Prince" Andrew in full media glare, walking Mumsy to her seat like he hasn't just publicly paid off the victim of a convicted sex-offender & convicted sex-trafficker after her allegations against him.
And then, we have Louis CK winning a Grammy, like he hasn't admitted to exploiting his position and sexually harassing women.
Someone in the comments somewhere said something like, "But, but how long should his punishment bee-eee-ee?" Well, actually I'm pretty comfortable with Louis CK never getting on tv again, never being awarded kiss-ass gongs again. I think if you're in the public eye, with the opportunities that brings for amassing wealth and status, you should be held to a standard of behaviour and if you fuck it up, you simply don't get another go. You go sit and write scripts for other people or something. I mean this is a man who wrote this:
“The courage it takes for a woman to say yes [to a date with
a man] is beyond anything I can imagine. A woman saying yes to a date with a
man is literally insane, and ill-advised. How do women still go out with guys,
when you consider the fact that there is no greater threat to women than men?
We’re the number one threat! To women! Globally and historically, we’re the
number one cause of injury and mayhem to women. We’re the worst thing that ever
happens to them!”
“If you’re a guy, imagine you could only date a
half-bear-half-lion. ‘Oh, I hope this one’s nice! I hope he doesn’t do what
he’s going to do.’”
It's not like he wasn't aware.
I'm comfortable with "cancelling" sexual predators and violent offenders from the public eye, because of their acts, for good. I'm comfortable with the idea of professional footballers or other sportspeople who rape or harass or commit violence, never getting to play professionally again. I'd have been comfortable with Polanski getting fucking jailed like he should have been and never having opportunity to make another film: that would have been good. I'm comfortable with the prospect of never seeing Kevin Spacey's face again.
As for Andrew, for fucks sake.
Viva la république.
Seems to me, that Will Smith probably needs to go into rehab or therapy big-time.
When I first saw a clip of him slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars, my immediate reaction was (sorry) somewhat amused, and thinking, "Well, Chris did have it coming a bit." And I know that's wrong: violence is never acceptable, and the joke Chris had made about Jada's hair, while in poor taste, didn't magically make it alright to hit him. Hitting people is bad, mm'kay.
But then I saw the longer clip, including the swearing from his seat afterwards - his face was just so stony and angry - it made it more real than the clip of the slap itself. You could only see Chris's face and he was trying to be professional as Will approached, and the strike itself looked rather theatrical, like that Batman slapping Robin meme. You can't see Will's face for that part, but when he sits back down and is yelling at Chris - well, he's that scary, enraged bloke down the pub who needs the bouncers to come for him.
And then there was the weepy, bizarre speech when receiving his Oscar...
Pretty strange that he wasn't asked to leave and the ceremony went on regardless. Surely the organisers must have a protocol for this sort of thing? If they don't, they need one. He should have been asked to leave and someone else accept the award on his behalf.
Some people are conspiracy theorists and saying it was all staged, which I guess would explain why they did fuck all about it but cut the mics, but I don't understand what Smith or Rock would gain from any of this. If the Oscar organisers wanted to spice up the ceremony for ratings, I don't understand why Smith & Rock would buy into it. What was supposedly in it for them? It wasn't a good look for either. Why would Smith want that to be the big story of the awards, when he knew he was pretty much bound to win his first Oscar? It makes no sense.
I've read quite a bit about this today, and saw that Smith has written previously about feeling powerless as a child while his mother was beaten, and I feel sorry for him, and sorry that maybe he saw hitting Rock as a way of "showing up" to protect his wife? But if he's had therapy for that trauma, he needs a whole lot more.
Finished (26/03/22): The Kaiju Preservation Society - John Scalzi
I've just been watching Death on Daytime, the documentary about The Jeremy Kyle Show, which is pretty damning about the programme and the tv production team culture behind it.
If you ever saw any of it, you know that Kyle often went after his guests incredibly aggressively and humiliatingly. It was glaringly obvious, both at the time and in retrospect, that a lot of those people appearing were not equipped to deal with any of it. I think that's inarguable.
In the breaks, 'though, Channel 4 was advertising Married at First Sight Australia, and that feels hypocritical.
The Jeremy Kyle Show was certainly a less glamorous form of human-bear-baiting, but MAFS is exploitative too. Differences - "class" of people (mostly wannabe actors/models and influencers etc), more scripted - but still, I've watched some of it, and it feels very uncomfortable. The documentary argued Kyle's show deliberately chose an unpopular underclass to exhibit for pillory. And I'm wondering if the wannabes also "deserve" it in a similar way, to people's minds? Sure, it's polished and sanitised, staged in luxurious settings, but it still can be people screaming in each other's faces while so-called experts look on and apparently do very little.
MAFS is far from alone, these sort of reality tv shows have proliferated and are popular, but they're very problematic. Having the adverts for it right in the middle of a show about someone killing himself after appearing on exploiTV, just makes me boggle.
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It's been a bad week for a few people in my life - bereavements and family illness and such. Not sure what to say about it.
I had plans for what to do today, but it's very windy. Which seems a bit wussy, but I mean, properly windy! Inconveniently, excessively, bitingly windy, all while the sun shines to beckon you out.
Oh that reminds me, there's an Aesop's Fable about the wind and the sun in competition to take a man's coat off, isn't there? The wind tries to pull it away from him and eventually is forced to give up, whereupon the sun shines down on him until he takes it off by choice. Apparently it's about the value of persuasion and gentleness rather than force.
But I'm not sure that works really - the sun's strength IS its heat. Just because it doesn't have the ability to pull the guy's coat away from him kinetically doesn't mean it isn't using its strength - it's beaming down on him so strongly he starts to sweat.
Ha, nice try. Aesop.
Finished: The Facts of Life & Death - Belinda Bauer
Ex has lost one of his parents over the weekend, so that's sad. (Shower of shit is still funny, but a bit poignant too.)
The parent-child bond between them may have had its problems, but In-Law was a decent person to me and did their best to accept their awkward daughter-in-law into the family. To be fair, we didn't see a lot of each other as we lived in different countries, so it was easy to have cordial relations! But I cannot fault ex's family throughout, for how they have been to me.
I guess I'll need to sort out getting the kids to the funeral. I'm not sure what the etiquette is about ex-DILs - I'm sure the family would be welcoming, but it's not really about me, is it? It's about ex having things straightforward at a difficult time.
It has sparked memories and I do wonder, sometimes, why ex didn't just let me go? There were times in our relationship that I was ready to give up and he persuaded or begged me to stay. Yet he must have known that he didn't want the same things I did, and that we didn't work, and what our relationship had to offer was never enough for him, or never felt like it.
I just don't get it.
Looking at his life now, he's got the kind of lifestyle he wanted and it looks like it's all worked out for the best for him, for both of us. I don't understand why he held on and made such a fuss about us splitting up. He could have had all that years ago if he'd stopped trying to convince me to stay with him. We could have both been happier sooner.
Today was quite amusing. I asked the ex, who was here to pick up T for the weekend, to help me move the guinea pig house from the back garden to the front garden, which he kindly agreed to do.
We quickly discovered that it was too wide to go up the path easily, and we ended up having to go high to go over the fence posts. Ex had a brainwave and went under the hutch, thinking he could support it from below. What he didn't realise, and I didn't remember, was that the floor of the hutch isn't fixed, so it went up as he pushed up - and a shower of guinea pig poop rained down, all over him!
I laughed.
He's not so bad really. He took it really well, and we continued shifting it into the front garden after a struggle over the hedge, as the entrance was too tight for it.
Oh dear, I laughed.
They do say no good deed goes unpunished, but you don't expect it to be quite so literal.
NB. For the keen guinea pig herders out there, fear not, that's not all the run mine have. I took off a side and extend their grazing with a wire enclosure. They have plenty of room to popcorn and chomp.
Finished: Darkside - Belinda Bauer
Ha, I feel slightly hurt and miffed that I was asked by my newly writing acquaintance to be a beta reader for their book, but they evidently forgot or decided against me. They are now talking online about their excitement/anxiety about having given the book to their beta readers.
Now, truthfully, I was dubious about agreeing to read it, as it's quite a big commitment not just to read it, but presumably within a timeframe, and try to have useful feedback about it too. When they asked, I was pretty bland in my response as I wasn't confident I would manage it, and I didn't follow up on it.
So it's a relief and I didn't really want to do it anyway. I sort of liked the idea of doing it, but I was conscious that I'd probably find it stressful and might have ended up letting them down.
Doesn't stop it smarting a bit tho!
Feelings are weird.
So, Covid sucks big ones.
I had all my jabs, but I wasn't feeling too great last weekend and took a test: positive.
I have been so ill with it the last few days, it's been dreadful. If that's "mild disease" then pfft. It was like the most horrible flu, it was a real struggle.
I feel like I'm out the other side now, thankfully.
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Some dude made a comment, on a local newspaper news post about whether people will continue to self-isolate after testing positive, that only a psycho or narcissist wouldn't.
Or, you know, they could be a person who doesn't have a job where they can work from home, and they can't afford to miss work now they no longer have the government's support & back-up with their employer.
But not to worry, those sorts of psychos and narcissists won't be able to afford to test to find out if they have Covid, anyway, so it's all good.
Finished: Snap - Belinda Bauer
Once in a while, I get the urge to Write: you know, like a novel, like "everyone has a book in them", like there's a story I could tell, not just blogging random stuff or dodgy poetry. I was quite proud a fortnight ago when I wrote a couple of thousand words of this opus.
And then, I'm back to thinking, I don't know enough, and, let's be frightfully honest, darling, I can't face the actual work of research or even plotting it out, I don't really know where it's going. I regret telling my bf that I did some writing because he asked me about it and I didn't really know how to answer most of his questions about it, as a half-formed idea, so it kind of put me off. Plus the more I think about it, the more derivative it feels and someone has no doubt done it better already.
Whereas, there's an acquaintance of mine who has just knocked out a novel in about a week and seems bursting with confidence and enthusiasm about it, and she's already started the next in the series. This morning I read a post from her bemoaning her writer's block. What are you even talking about? You've written an entire book in a matter of days, part of another, and you've been blocked for about five minutes!
Am I envious? Yeah, a wee bit - the apparently boundless confidence to write whatever and put it out there.
I guess, a few years ago, I did actually start sharing some of my bits of creative writing online, and that went OK with a limited audience and all. I got a real kick out of it when it was well-received and it was a positive kind of environment where if you don't like it, you don't say so. (Is that positive? Hmm, to be considered).
I moved some of it here when I left that online community a couple of years ago. Note that I have labelled it five-minute-poetry and so forth, which is a way of getting in there before someone else can, isn't it? Not exactly brimming with confidence in the work. Not but what it truly was pretty quickly done, because if I go back over things too much, I overthink and there it sticks, never to be seen again. Which might not be a bad thing, frankly.
I know if I want to write, I need to just do it. It's really entirely up to me.
I feel quite sad that the neighbour's cat has had to be put down. He'd gone downhill very rapidly and the neighbour let me know as she'd asked me to help her medicate him. She was devastated and the rest of the family too.
He was an unholy terror to mine and most neighbouring cats, but he was a Cat, just doing cat-things.
Alas, chap, I salute you.
Finished: Exit - Belinda Bauer
That's what the radio said. It always makes me think that means a suicide attempt.
I think it was this time, as there was a copper standing over a crumpled figure on the pedestrian lane. I guess it could equally be physical illness or intoxication, as despair.
I saw them manhandle down a potential jumper once on the bridge. Looked pretty rough, but I guess they needed to be decisive. Left a funny sort of snapshot of the action in my mind.
You get these kinds of moments in memory - once I was driving up the dual carriageway, someone was overtaking me, and suddenly something smashed into the carriageway ahead of us. It was a windscreen, a whole windscreen. On the other side of the barrier, I saw the underside of a car hurtling towards us: it must have been sliding on its side.
And then, we were past, unharmed.
It must have scared the hell out of the person overtaking me. It feels kind of unreal and I wasn't that shaken up by it at the time. But by the time I got to work, I could think about it a bit more and mentally thank the H&S bods that thought up and installed crash barriers. Never did find out what happened to the driver on the other side.
It amused me.
I'm currently watching "All of Us are Dead", which is awesome. Korean zombie series, very dark, some great story-telling, gripping emotional moments.
I've revisited "Arcane", which is a great show, sort of steampunk aesthetic and based on the video game.
Binge-watched "Loki" and "WandaVision" recently. I preferred "WandaVision" of the two: I felt the story was better.
I've also been enjoying "Couples Therapy", which follows a few couples through sessions with Orna, their therapist, and her reflection sessions with her mentor. It's interesting stuff. I watched both series fairly quickly.
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I've written to my MP a couple of times lately.
She has dutifully written back: snazzy cream envelopes, House of Commons postmark and all, but I haven't read either of the responses yet. What's going on with that, I wonder?
Finished: Rubberneckers - Belinda Bauer
I have been learning Danish with duolingo for a couple of months, and have recently learnt the word bukser, which duolingo says is pants. I was amused by the similarity to boxers and by the app's insistence we keep talking about the colour of our pants.
Driving home last night, I came to the sudden disappointing realisation that it's using US English and means trousers. D'oh!
Going to the hair-dresser throws up some weird stuff for me. I really struggle with small talk, which is part of my social anxiety.
My bf thinks I have some level of autism, which I have doubts about. In some ways, it would be a relief to think that, because then it would mean I don't have to feel guilty because I'm not trying hard enough. I feel like social anxiety is something I should be able to overcome and when it doesn't seem to get much better or I have a bad day, then it's just me being rubbish and awkward. A diagnosis would seem to offer a break from that, because while there are strategies a person can use to manage better, if you're neurodiverse, you're neurodiverse, and it's not a question of "getting over it" by putting enough effort in. But I dunno, I feel like it's a "popular" diagnosis and for people to claim it sometimes seems like appropriation. While when I do those online questionnaires about it I come out as likely, I wonder who wouldn't.
Anyway, today the social anxiety was looming large - I guess partly sparked by having ducked phoning them to let them know T wouldn't be attending his appointment as unwell. In fairness, I only knew the night before - but really I could have called their answering machine, and that would have been better. Why didn't I do that? Phoning them first thing to let them know seemed too late and not worth it, and then I was nervous about going myself in case they were cross about it. But they were fine.
I also got the time slightly wrong and turned up early so was sort of adding up minor stresses about it - all entirely of my own making - could have checked the appointment card before leaving, even thought I should, but did not.
It's funny how I react to things - head massage is fine, but occasionally feels like my head is a big pimple they're trying to pop - they ask me if the pressure is OK, and I say yes. Mostly it is, sometimes it's nice, sometimes it's head-pimple-time.
Is the water too hot? Sometimes. Will I say? I will not.
And when they ask me about using the massage chair function, I always say no, because it feels sort of wrong, indecent(?) to have a massage in public. What is going on there?! Maybe I'd like it. Why am I so horrified by the idea? I think it's the prospect I might enjoy it that worries me most, to be honest.
When the lady beside me accepts a hand massage, I'm a bit nonplussed and repulsed by it - why would you want that?
People, well, women really, sometimes talk excitedly about spa days and "pampering", and it feels like the last thing I would want.
And I'm not sure what is at root here. There's my personal discomfort about having someone in the service position, I think - some sort of idea of hierarchy of the Indulged and the wage slave, I guess? And I have a kind of horror of touching strangers, even in these perfectly socially acceptable, everyday ways. Hmm. I presume that the people who go into jobs such as hairdressing, manicure, massage etc largely do not share that horror. I hope not, anyway.
There's a bit of a puritanical thread, something about vanity and indolence. I feel like it might be coming from my granny, but I don't know - she gets a lot of blame for stuff.
Mum never really wore much make-up - I think she'd have foundation and mascara maybe - but she was in a very physical job, very male-dominated, so it was just not practical, and it was always jeans and jumpers, and like country-living and horses and such for me growing up. Which it's not impossible to combine make-up and fashion into, but I never was much interested.
I remember playing with make-up with my cousin and I was getting her to try terrible combinations of colours on herself, and then she did me; I was quite shocked and hurt when she had done awful make-up on me in return. Which is entirely unreasonable, looking back!
My whole life, make-up has just been for special occasions and it feels weird on my face if I do wear it. I'd say about 50% of the times I do put it on, I end up wiping it all off again.
And I don't really like to spend much time looking at myself in mirrors - I do it, and feel a tiny bit guilty and like someone might catch me at it. Perpetually faintly embarrassed someone might see me checking myself out! Thus, sitting in front of a big mirror at a salon for ages feels weird and uncomfortable.
And the general hubbub of chatter and blowers - it feels vertiginous and so very alien.
When it was finished, I was relieved: a few times I had considered getting up and leaving partway through. It's not always like this - I must remember that so I don't stop going. Although that vertiginous feeling is a regular feature.
I tip reasonably well in recompense for being slightly odd.
It pleased me when a white BMW driver who zoomed past me and a truck in a really dangerous manner, got to see me again in their rear view mirror ten minutes later. Really, that bit of driving got you nowhere at all, did it?
Theory: if you're a people-pleaser and have poor boundaries and people treat you like rubbish, you're not actually doing the person/people you're trying to please any favours, as well as getting hurt yourself.
If you do bad things to a partner or family member or friend, and you can roll around like a pig in shit in the ways it benefits you and get away with justifying your own bad behaviour to someone you're supposed to love, then that makes you a worse person: it builds on your feeling of entitlement, it actually degrades you somewhere in your psyche, I think, to degrade someone else.
Of course the problem with this framing, it is rather victim-blaming.
I'm tempted by it when a person says they love the abuser and are loved in return, and the abuser would be devastated if they left - and, I guess, the person wants to protect/support/save them, basically. But you're not saving them, you're enabling them to continue rolling around in their own shit. Hmm.
Is that co-dependence?
Not sure where I'm going with this anyway.
Good lord the fire alarm is loud. It's gone off five times this morning before 9am on a Sunday, for no apparent reason - making the cat, terrified and big-eyed, cower on the stairs, and me, swearing and heart thumping, run to shut it off. T on the other hand doesn't appear to have stirred, although he MUST have been woken by it. My ears are still ringing. Bloody bloody bloody thing.
I bet the immediate neighbours love me.
I really hope it's sorted itself out now. It's been nearly an hour since it last went off.
Finished last night: Hostage - Clare Mackintosh
I'm pleased that the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Crime bill has been voted down by the House of Lords. Thank goodness we have them. It's scary that the government are trying to create such powers to stop and limit protest.
The row about number 10 having parties during Covid restrictions goes on and on. Boris' pathetic "nobody warned me it was against the rules" today made me roll my eyes hard. Cummings says he was alerted to the fact it wasn't appropriate; Boris says he was not.
But Boris, aren't you supposed to be the person in ultimate charge of what the rules were?
Surely you should know them yourself and be able to figure out what contravenes them if you are in charge of the country? Or shit, let's aim lower than following the rules because you put them in place and it's the right thing to do - what about what might make you look bad if it came out publicly? Should you really need that to be spoon-fed to you? "Nobody told meee"? Really? That's the best you've got?
It's the breath-taking complacency and arrogance of the lot of them that vexes me. Him doing his bumbling, sad-eyed, over-grown toddler act, saying "I'm very very sowwy" & "I didn't kno-oh-oh-ohw" in the hopes Nanny Public won't spank his botty does nothing to endear him to me.
Finished (last night) Day of the Dead - Nicci French
I've started doing Wordle - but of course! (in my Poirot voice) - isn't everybody?
I'm not sure what the fuss is about, it's not a new concept or anything - it's not a word game the chap has actually invented? I mean the tv show Lingo predates it for one thing and I'm sure I've played it before. But anyway, it's gentle but challenging.
I got today's in 3. Woot.
Finished (last night): House of Correction - Nikki French
Series I'm watching at the moment on Netflix - "The Sinner" starring Bill Pullman as fucked-up policeman going above and beyond. Not sure how I feel about it over all, but it's kept me hooked into series 2 so far.
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Cat was shouting at the door to be let in, with that peculiar note in her voice that lets you know, "I'm home, and I have something for you." I went to try to get her to release it, not letting her in until she lets it go, and she did - but her victim was confused and flew IN to the house, not away from it.
I spent the morning hunting for it on and off - I guess as Cat intended, although my purpose not to murder. It was a tiny wren and seemed completely unharmed by her, although you can't see the psychological wounds, I guess.
It hid under the armchair and all sorts of places, and was so dinky and fast, that I had no sense of where it was apart from when it would show itself and fly. I had all the doors and windows open and was just hoping it would find its own way out. Every time I thought it must have by now and thought I could probably close them, it would reappear.
Eventually it popped out from under the bureau and looked at me, head tilted, so very cutely. Then it went under again, so I crept over and flushed it out. It flew straight across the living room and out of the door! Freeeddomm!
And I discovered I didn't really know what a troglodyte was, although I knew the word, but now I do. I'm being edumacated. The hermit part of the clue threw me off, as I just thought it was a word for caveman and didn't know the reclusive angle.
I don't know what it is, but I find Adele's music really grating. I know everyone seems to think she's awesome, and I can see that she has an amazing voice and all that - but I can't listen to most of her stuff. In the lead up to the release of her new album, the radio station seemed to be going out of their minds over it, and I'm like, please god, no.
It's the way she drags some notes out - take it eeeeeeeeeeasy on me baby - take it easy on my ears, please.
Also, I don't like the content of her lyrics generally: they often seem self-pitying to me. In regard to the song "Easy on me" - if you done fucked up as a parent, as we all do, just hold your hands up to it and don't make excuses. You can hope your children look back with understanding and know you did your best with the tools you had (if you did), but I don't think it's right to ask for that, to put that on them.
Her more cheerful songs I can get along with better, but the ballads are so bloody miserable, I have to switch off. I don't mind "Skyfall": it's got the proper Bond sound to it, but there are far better Bond theme songs. "Live & let die" is probably my favourite. The songs are generally the best bit about Bond movies.
