Well, we’ve finally had a spot of cold weather – we awoke on Thursday morning to what is known in the trade as a “hard frost.” The landscape on the other side of the windows shimmered with a white frosting and the temperature had, allegedly, dipped to -5o C overnight (23o F). As I said last time, I am old enough not to miss the cold temperatures and snow but, so far, this “winter” has been very disconcerting – it was 16o C (almost 61o F) on New Year’s Day for goodness’ sake! We have nice summer days that don’t get that warm.
For a bit of weather excitement, the Met Office issued storm warnings for “thundersnow” from Thursday onwards. How exhilarating! I have to confess; I did not know there was such a thing and apparently, it’s quite unusual. Obviously, we experienced none of this excitement – such conditions are confined to the Scottish Highlands, it seems.
We’ve done relatively little this week. Or, at least, I’ve done relatively little this week. Lady Penelope is always busy.
This week has been “Movie Week” in Framington House – we’ve been on a bit of a binge watching a succession of films ranging from the very good to the distinctly mediocre. I think it’s probably because Penny frequently complains that there’s “nothing to watch” on any of the seventeen thousand channels we receive. Funnily enough, I can always find something worth watching, especially at the moment when there are so many American football matches to watch.
We watched After Love early last week (IMDB Rating 7.3). It’s a gentle film about an English woman (Joanna Scanlan) who converted to Islam to marry her Pakistani husband. They live in Dover and he works on the cross channel ferries. He dies suddenly and unexpectedly after which the wife discovers that he had a second family in Calais. Interesting interactions between the two “wives” and the teenage son born to the French mistress. Slow but steady – perhaps worth a watch if there’s nothing else to do.
We then watched The Lost Daughter directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, starring Olivia Colman and based on a novel by Elena Ferrante. Our measured verdict? It was “OK”. Olivia Colman is, not surprisingly, very good but we struggled throughout to understand her motivation for doing what she did. Her character had a troubled relationship with her own daughters in an earlier life but we ended up scratching our heads. The 6.8 rating on the IMDB is perhaps a tad generous.
Being the Ricardos was next in line (I think – the order in which we watched these is somewhat hazy in my recollections) which was fun. It’s only earned a 6.6 rating on the IMDB but I thought it was better than that. Entertaining while perhaps not overly deep or meaningful – sometimes you just need a bit of light entertainment to while the evening away.
We also watched Don’t Look Up which comes heavily hyped but, again, we found it somewhat underwhelming. This was particularly disappointing as there was so much potential and a star-studded cast. Part of the problem, for us at least, was that we did not deduce that it was meant to be satirical and/or funny until quite late in the game. So, again, we kept scratching our heads trying to work out the principal characters’ motivations. It was riddled with potential metaphors for our times – the impending catastrophic disaster which the scientists alert us to only for it to be trivialised by the media and ignored by incompetent politicians whose only concern is re-election. There is also an arrogant technology guru whose main objective is to attempt to monetise the impending disaster and a lovely political crowd scene with cries of “Don’t Look Up!” so reminiscent of the “Stop the Steal” chants of a year ago. The 7.3 rating on the IMDB is, again, somewhat generous.
We watched Little Woman with Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Meryl Streep, Laura Dern, et. al. which, if you’ve not seen it, is very good. I guess we’re all familiar with the novel but this version was told in an interesting and non-chronological way with the story jumping forward and backward in time. Really well done.
Then, on Wednesday evening, we watched The Gentlemen with Matthew McConaughey, Michelle Dockery, Colin Farrell and Hugh Grant as an excellently slimy chancer. It’s directed by Guy Ritchie and is a “typical” Guy Ritchie film – lots of over-the-top violence but all done in a humorous manner. It’s been around for a couple of years but only recently became available on Netflix in the UK (I think). 7.8 on the IMDB which is about right, I reckon. This one comes with a Moreton Pinkney Picayune recommendation.
We watched The Power of the Dog with Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons which also comes heavily hyped on Netflix. We thought it was “good” if not perhaps great and the 7.0 rating on the IMDB is probably about right. It’s very well acted but perhaps just a tad slow. Lots of interesting messages and worth a watch but I doubt whether it will be in contention for any Oscars.
Finally, bringing this week’s Moreton Pinkney Picayune Film Reviews to a conclusion, we watched The Hand of God which was terrific. It’s in Italian and is written and directed by Paulo Sorrentino and tells of his own childhood in Naples. According to Sorrentino, “almost everything” in the film is true which means, I guess, that he had a fascinating childhood/young adulthood. Some very interesting characters/relatives, some very funny events along with personal tragedy. Definitely worth a look.
The other evening as we were settling down with our popcorn, Penny came through and announced that the Blind Man was coming the following morning. I struggled to work out what she meant – I couldn’t remember any of our friends or acquantainces who were blind (other than a young woman at the other end of the village). I was also concerned about how he would get here – would he be driving himself? Isn’t that a bit dangerous for a Blind Man?
She soon put me right – he was coming to measure up for some blinds across the new French doors in Penny’s workshop. Whew!
You Could Not Make It Up
In the ongoing saga over who paid for the refurbishment of the Prime Minister’s flat at Number 10, the “Independent” adviser on ministerial interests (i.e., the Sleaze Minister appointed by the Prime Minister) has “severly criticised” the PM for being less than forthcoming about the funding details for the refurbishment.
Originally the PM had said he was not aware of who was paying for the refurbishment until the affair was raised by the media. It then emerged that there were WhatsApp messages between him and the Tory donor who was providing the cash discussing the refurbishment long before it was raised in the press. Now the PM claims (a) he changed his phone and all his WhatsApp messages were lost (file that under “B” for Bollocks) and (b) he “forgot” about the exchange of messages. That does make sense, I guess. Heck, I often forget who is offering to give me a wheelbarrow full of money.
I am grateful to Penny’s sister J in Toronto for sending me the following from Andy Borowitz.
“Fact-Resistant Humans Endanger Earth”, says scientist!
Andy Borowitz, a satirist for the New Yorker, cites a study conducted by the University of Minnesota that “identifies a virulent strain of humans who are virtually immune to any form of verifiable knowledge, leaving scientists at a loss as to how to combat them.” What is disturbing to those looking at the situation is that, “these humans appear to have all the faculties necessary to receive and process information,” Davis Logsdon, one of the scientists who contributed to the study, said. “And yet, somehow, they have developed defenses that, for all intents and purposes, have rendered those faculties totally inactive. As facts have multiplied, their defenses against those facts have only grown more powerful.” Scientists theorize humans have evolved to intercept and discard information en route from the auditory nerve to the brain. “The normal functions of human consciousness have been completely nullified,” Logsdon said.
Still Logsdon is hopeful and that people will wake up. “Our research is very preliminary, but it’s possible that they will become more receptive to facts once they are in an environment without food, water, or oxygen,” he said.
Finally, for your entertainment, a short video of Jessie learning to play chess.
I’m not sure she has the killer mindset to be successful in the international chess world. Sharing is caring.
And finally, finally, I ran across this on Twitter from the marvellous Jess Phillips, Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley:
Hey! It seems to be working for me!
Meanwhile, keep happy, keep smiling, keep isolating as much as you can, wear a f**king facemask when you go out and keep your distance. And keep safe.
Lots of love to you all,
Greg