Post 355. AS LOCKDOWN CONTINUES.

WE ARE WATCHING MORE

Films and TV series. 

I think people are seeing much more on Netflix (other suppliers of film and TV series are available) since the lockdown. We are taking in films and series of stuff we didn't see before because, surprise surprise, they were on stations we mostly ignored. It has encouraged us to watch everything from the previously unseen (by us) western series Godless, which I liked, to the many heaps of abandoned garbage which my Leader has subsequently dismissed with the words: "That was half an hour we'll never get back."

One of my current viewing enjoyments is the UFO 'conspiracy theory' series Project Blue Book. I firmly believe we cannot be the only reasoning beings in all the galaxies, and this fascinating take on the findings of Professor J. Allen Hynek, excellently portrayed by Aiden Gillen (pictured), does seem to justify that belief.

SYFY HD is currently screening series 2.  

I have found YouTube on our television, too, and that has enabled me to rediscover Pekka Kuusisto's 2016 performance of Tchaikovsky's violin concerto at the Royal Albert Hall, together with the most hilarious encore given at the BBC Proms in its entire history. I read that the maestro suffered an injury late in 2018 which put a stop to his violin playing and he consequently, despite prior reservations, joined the ever lengthening list of soloists who have become orchestra conductors. I think any orchestra would be happy to see him on the rostrum, but I hope he will be back scraping the catgut when the next Proms gathering comes along.

Cheers, Pekka Kuusisto!

The departure of live sport from television, together with wise adherence to the safe distance rule, has completely bemused the sadly limited imagination of most television producers. It has, however, enabled them to serve up even more ancient tat and repeat repeats than they can when those long hours of live reality rubbish and semisacred sport are in full sway.

Well, chancers never miss a chance, do they.

We view much of the unearthed TV output from our middle-aged years with wry smiles and, often, mutterings of disbelief at what was acceptable then. The golden age of television?

A cliché to say so, but it's another world now.

Some of it for the better. 

BUT NOT ALL.

Some things just get worse.

In America: President Trump has a brainwave (a worrying thing in any politician) and queries whether it might not be possible to inject some sort of cleansing agent (bleach?) into coronavirus sufferers to clean out their lungs. Oh dear.

And in the UK: Prime Minister Johnson's current partner gives birth to a baby boy (his sixth - publicly known of - child) and the House of Commons wildly applauds it.

Well, everybody loves a new baby. But that effusively?

Yeah, it really is another world now.

AND TO CONCLUDE.

A perverse month.
Just when it seemed the sun would shine forever, along came April showers and, just as quiet roads were becoming rather enjoyable, out came the dickheads (petrolheads) to pollute the peace again. 
Human nature? Huh!

Oh, our window cleaner came this morning. Sun was shining. From a suitable distance he cleaned all the windows.  
As he left the downpour started. 
Essential service? Huh!

Help yourself and others stay alive.

Stay at home.

Post 354. THE LEGALISED GANGSTERS..

HERE ON THIS ISLAND

And throughout Britain.

National, local and private administrative bodies are increasingly taking the heavy-handed approach and employing firms of legalised gangsters (debt collection 'businesses') to extort cash from the public for them. This extortion takes the form of 'fining' citizens (usually motorists) for alleged misdemeanours (mostly parking infringements), however unintentional. The 'fines' are increased for failure to pay within a certain time and there is a threat of blacklisting on a list of 'bad debtors' for any who refuse to be blackmailed. 

In America in the nineteen twenties those who illegally imposed such demands on people were known as protection racketeers. Britain's twenty first century version is no better. Just legal. 
My wife has recently fallen foul of the insidious bastards, so at the moment I am hopping mad about them. But I have been sick and tired of the acquisitive line taken by the powers that be to motorists in the UK since the day I passed my driving test in 1957. Various authorities and their bounty hunter 'heavies' have been bleeding the vehicle owner dry ever since, so I have had a very long time to hate their guts.

Truth to tell I still think the MP, way back, who smugly described the motorist as “a buoyant source of revenue,” should have been dragged from Parliament and hung by his neck from the nearest lamppost no matter how accurate his description. That would have wiped the silly grin off his face. 

For me, driving's not a pleasure anymore. 
Hasn't been for years. So now I neither drive nor own a car. My wife is our car owner and driver. Still will be, all being well, when this plague thing is over and done with. 
She (like you?) is missing the driving at present.

What? Oh, she was totally mislead by somebody at the desk in Newport's Riverside Centre who assured her she was OK parked there when she visited them one Saturday before the lockdown. Even with her disabled driver badge, she wasn't.

She has paid the fine. 

I'd have told them to fuck off.

LEISURE TIME.

Well, unless you are one of those poor souls in hospital, or having a tough time making a recovery from your last visit to one, or somebody who is able to work from home, it's all leisure time now, isn't it. 

Trouble is, you can't go out and enjoy it. My Leader is currently working like a pixilated pixie in the garden. I take her a cuppa and do a bit of edging. She doesn't let me overdo that, either. 
There is a lot more traffic about here now. They can't all be going to essential work, or walking the dog, or going to a shop for imperative supplies, can they? 
Word is, though, that there is a police car stationed up the road watching them fly by. 
But shouldn't somebody be stopping some of them? If only to ask how much they really want Covid-19 to spread? 
Well, perhaps not. Most of them wouldn't have a clue why they were being asked a question like that. 
You can't ask reasonable questions of dickheads.
So fine 'em. 
Better that than fining elderly ladies parked in wrong places. 
Can't resist showing this pair of fine ladies again.

Go carefully, and only if entirely necessary.

Post 353. LIKE SUNDAY EVERY DAY.

IT'S ALMOST RELIGIOUSLY QUIET. 

Without the traffic. 

If you ever prayed for some peace and quiet you must be thinking your prayers have been answered.

It's like Sunday every day, isn't it? Almost religiously quiet. I keep expecting roast beef for dinner with Rawicz and Landauer providing the background music. Or Billy Cotton and his band if you were a dinner at lunchtime person.

We live on the main road between the towns of Newport and Ryde. Over thirty years ago a bypass around our village, Wootton Bridge, was planned by the I.W. Council which, in customary Council fashion, compulsory purchased two en route little bungalows from which three helpless villagers were evicted. The Council was then persuaded to reallocate the funding for the bypass to the building of a new bridge at Yarmouth which would enable wealthy yachties to safely get to the supermarket at Freshwater for their groceries.The Wootton bypass plan was abandoned and has never, to my knowledge, been broached at any subsequent Council meeting.

The two little bungalows were demolished and the land where they stood was appropriated to accommodate one large, attractive, not to be subjected to a compulsory purchase order, replacement.

It was probably all settled by Council petty corruption. Most things are over here, just as they are in almost every town and city in the entire country.

So what brings it all back to me now?

Well, on the positive side, if that bypass had been built the road outside here would have been as almost religiously quiet as it is now, we would not have needed double glazing (wonderful though that may be), our windows would have been wide open on every bright sunny day, and the value of this and every other property along this stretch of road would have gone through the roof. 

On the negative side: we could never have afforded to be here.

Anyway, the old bridge at Yarmouth was bloody dangerous.

LAST MONTH I FORGOT TO MENTION.

That confounded hour.

It went forward at 1 o'clock a couple of weeks ago and we shall have British Summer Time now until the last Sunday in October. I'd be happy if it never changed again. I like BST even if, for a few weeks, I shall be awake at dark o'clock every morning with the bedside timepiece telling me it's an hour later than my body clock reckons it to be. By the time October gets here I shall be tickety-boo and totally unready to change back again. I really don't want that clock up there to read an hour earlier come 25 October next. So, you bureaucrats, do us a favour: from now on leave our clocks at BST. 
It's a civilized time.

But it really does fly.

Discussing recently how quickly the years go by after one retires (thirty one since my retirement from the NHS), was surprised to learn that two friends I always thought of as much younger than me have both been retired for more than twenty years.

I've always had a viewpoint older than I am, though that takes some doing nowadays. The only youthful thing I ever did was abandon bachelorhood when I was nearly thirty two years old to marry a lass thirteen years my junior. That rash flurry into adolescence has so far lasted fifty nine years and, three children, two grandchildren, and a bevi of step and courtesy young relatives later, seems set to continue until one of us kicks the bucket.

To those seeking the secret of our lengthy marriage we have a stock explanation: We're both extremely stubborn. Eh? 

Mmm. Perhaps it is a little more than that.

TELEVISION.

It's films and mini-series now.

Every now and then it comes home to me that we survived WW2 without television. 

How did we manage? I guess it was a case of what you've never had you never miss. We had the radio of course. It was seldom off in our house. But we didn't have talking pictures anywhere other than in cinemas – and I was ordered to leave promptly for home if the sirens went while I was 'at the pictures.' I always did as I was told. You didn't defy my mother. 

Our local 'fleapit' survived the war. Was there for some years after. If it's still there now it will be a supermarket.

RIP Johnny Mack Brown. That's progress.

And now we are not allowed out, so thank the gods for the box in the living room.

Currently I am watching a fascinating reworking of War of the Worlds with Gabriel Byrne, Elizabeth McGovern and Co. It's good.

We are also watching 'the last ever series' of Homeland. Really? Whatever. 

CIA agent Carrie (Claire Danes) is still manically rushing around the middle east spreading ill will for America in the most well-meaning way and Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin), her mentor, is still failing to control her while making excuses for her excesses. When it's all over I hope Mr. Patinkin will continue to entertain with his singing. I have just been listening on YouTube to his 2008 recording of Over The Rainbow. Beautiful. 

Other than that we are doing the mini-series circuit (Mo goes for the historical stuff and I for westerns and thrillers) and we are constantly on the lookout for decent films. Netflix is pretty good on that score. Have just seen Effie Gray, Emma Thompson's film about John Ruskin and his wife. Well worth the viewing.

And that's that for now.

Mo's talking to her pals on ipad. They go to one or the other's house on Wednesday evenings but that's out at the moment.

So thanks be for technology. 

Go safely wherever you are.