Little jobs like these are admittedly very small, and possibly quite dull. But getting them done is always satisfying.
New live bulbs.
Getting the bulbs out was not easy. They are located very tight under the metal engine frame, and require a twist’n’pull manoeuvre to get them out.
Ouch!
Halfords wanted £20 to fit them. After thinking about giving up and letting them do it, I decided, dammit… I’ll do it! I saved myself twenty quid. But it cost a little in blood!
The real difference will obviously be in the dark. Where before I was unsure if they were working, hopefully now I can transition (oo-er) from light to dark and viscount-versace more safely and gracefully.
I also checked my reversing lights. They’re working, the Halfords dude says. Hmmm!? I’m tempted to augment them somehow. Like a Trump voting MAGA twat, they just ain’t bright enough.
Teresa and I are listening to this fabulous series, again. I/we have listened to it many, many, many times. And, like the Tolkienian source, I/we never weary of it.
Gandalf, Bilbo and Frodo.
Michael Horden, John leMesurier and Ian Holm, pictured during the production of this evergreen classic. I’d love to find/read the full contents of the article pictured below:
A magazine spread (Radio Times?) about the production.
I’ve also been reading random bits of Brian Sibley’s various blogs today. Fascinating!
I even wrote Sibley an email, to thank him for his part in bringing this wonderful project into being, and to inquire as to some of Stephen Oliver’s terrific music.
NB – The is an ancient archival review, written many years ago, prob’ for Amazon UK. I’m trying to get as much of that old content up on here as I can.
I love Dickens: great fun to read, emotionally engaging, and mixing forays into social realism with ripping good yarns.
Okay, so his social realism isn’t always award winning documentary grade, and his characterisations are very stagey, his heroes and villains being rather like the ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’ of childhood. And he’s so very sentimental.
But, heck, he’s nonetheless a great and engaging writer. You’d have to have quite a cold hard Scrooge-like heart not to love him! There’s only one thing I noted with less keenness, and that was the style of his writing for ‘yokel-speak’.
Modern writers have made great advances with use of the vernacular. But, as with much Dickens, Hard Times moved me to tears… corn-ball that I am! And, at the price I paid for it* – £2! – it was a no-brainer.
*That was a stand alone paperback purchase. We now also have it as part of a multi-volume hardback complete edition!
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thomson was gunned down, in the early hours of Sept’ 4th, 2024, in New York. A suspect, 26 year old Luigi Mangione, was arrested, on Dec’ 9th, in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
It’s way too early to say very much about all of this, esp’ as someone looking on from afar, with very little info’ at my disposal (and growing increasingly sceptical about truth in a world – and coming from a Society – that allows folk like Trump into high office).
But it obviously touches on all kinds of issues that one can think and talk about.
Brian Thomson.
Personally I feel that if we’re going to have to live in complex modern societies, then basic healthcare, along the lines of how the NHS was supposed to be when it was founded, ought to be part of what ‘The State’ provides.
The American system is clearly terrible on many levels. And it’s surprising this sort of thing – super-rich CEOs being hunted down and assassinated – isn’t happening far more often. Such people are, after all, getting incredibly rich off money people are, or so they are lead to believe, ‘investing’ in their own healthcare.
Luigi Mangione.
I’ve read online that Luigi Mangione was ‘fingered’, so to speak, by a McDonalds employee (and poss’ also a friend, or associate?). It’s also been alleged that he had a 3-D printed gun and suppressor, and was using the same fake ID he (or the suspect/killer) had used in NY.*
One of the things that occurs to me, however, is just how murky all this shit can be. A guy was arrested in connection with an attempted shooting of Trump, at one of his golf resorts. I read that someone else, someone merely connected to the alleged shooter, in that incident was subsequently ‘found’ to have loads of kiddie-porn on various devices.
I’m not one who likes or wants to fall prey to conspiracy theories. But one has to wonder whether the powers that be aren’t free to manufacture patsies, as they please.
Whether Mangione is the perpetrator is yet to proven. But it’s long been a known fact that many people die, who might’ve lived, under the current ultra-capitalist model pursued in the US.
Are all those lost and blighted lives worth nothing? Are the many just supposed to suffer in silence, grist to the mill for the pleasures and indulgences of the Fat Cats?
When Society not only fails to curtail blatant profiteering and greed, but rewards and encourages it, is it any surprise that those bearing the most onerous costs might think how they could seek some kind of redress? Somehow call the Pimp/Overseer/Exploiter class to account?
It turns out Mangione is from a very wealthy privileged background. It’s also alleged that he has back pain. If even one of the wealthy is so disgusted at how US ‘healthcare’ is run, as to take to hunting CEOs, imagine how vast are the untapped reservoirs of rage lower down the food chain?
The above image captures how I feel, when in bed/asleep. And, in all honesty, how I want to be this entire Winter. I have zero motivation/energy. I suspect I’m undergoing some form of depression. I don’t appear to have the will to do anything beyond eat, sleep and work. Can’t even summon the energy to read at present!
Whilst Storm Darragh passed, Teresa very kindly and insistently decreed that I shouldn’t work! And so I didn’t, neither yesterday nor today.
Lunch.
That in itself is nice. But, even better, we’ve enjoyed some home time, just the two of us. Playing cards, Scrabble, watching Columbo, and just generally being quietly and cosily domestic.
Fun!
‘Tis pity I did’nae get a pic of the fab’ roast Teresa cooked for Sunday dinner. But I did get a snap of the tomato and chickpea noodle soup I made for lunch.
Irons and Andrews in Brideshead Revisited.
Anthony Andrews, pictured above, was in one of the episodes of Columbo we watched. From seeing him it wasn’t far to leap to remembering Aloysius, Sebastian Flyte’s Teddy. Which in turn was based on Betjeman’s Teddy, Archibald Ormsby-Gore.
Betjeman with Jumbo and Archie.
I love this sort of old-fashioned sentimentality. Which reminds me… we must watch Brideshead Revisited. It’s very highly regarded, I believe. We shall have to see what we make of it.
Damn… after a blessed long period of sleeping every night like a baby, my first attack of old fashioned insomnia. I slept roughly 9-12pm. But then awoke. And since then, not a chance of sleep! Bummer.
In many ways I’d say this is a Great Film, probably deserving of the full five stars. Certainly in terms of the charisma of the actors, and the splendour of the production, it’s terrific.
Story and ideas wise it depicts Thomas More as a conscientious hero; unwilling to compromise on matters of principle, at a time and in a place where to take such a stance was tantamount to suicide.
Blackadder, a man of lesser scruples.
This all put me in mind of that scene in Blackadder III (‘Ink & Incapability’), in which Edmund says ‘Sir Thomas More, for instance, burned alive for refusing to recant his Catholicism, must have been kicking himself, as the flames licked higher, that it never occurred to him to say, “I recant my Catholicism.”’
Well, firstly More was beheaded, not burnt at the stake. Apparently his beheading was a merciful act on Henry VIII’s part, as the original sentence called for More to be hung, drawn and quartered!
That’s gonna smart!
But secondly, and most fundamentally, the entire story of More, as it’s shown here, is about a man of conscience taking a moral stand.
Blackadder’s moral relativism, born of the very worldly and practical desire to survive, was of course just as strong a feature of normal human behaviour in More’s Tudor era as in any other. Witness the behaviour of his friends and contemporaries.
Awesome Welles as Cardinal Wolsey.
Let’s go back to the great acting we witness here. Orson Welles has a brief cameo as a vermillion Jabba The Hutt, or rather Cardinal Wolsey. Indeed, we have this film on DVD as part of an Orson Welles set.
More and Cromwell.
A young Richard Hurt is terrific as the initially earnest but soon all too corrupt Richard Rich. And Leo ‘Rumpole’ McKern is a much more malevolent (and frankly believable, as in less idealised) Cromwell than the version played more recently by Mark Rylance.
Martin Shaw as ‘Enry VIII.
Martin Shaw is great as the unhinged and very shouty despot, Henry VIII, with his flock of sycophants. Charismatic, but volatile. Not fat enough, admittedly, but nonetheless good in the role.
Schofield as More. Superb!
And of course there’s Paul Schofield, in the lead role. And what a performance. His declamatory style in the several eloquent soliloquies bespeaks his Shakespearean pedigree. And he can shout with the best of them, when needed.*
*Another reminder of Bl’Adder, and those two actors, in ‘Sense & Senility’.
Susannah York as Meg.
Both Susannah York as More’s daughter Meg, and Wendy Hiller, as his wife Alice, are very good as well. One of the most moving scenes is the familial farewell, in The Tower, as they attempt to get Thomas to tow the required line, and thereby ensure his survival.
The court room scene is also very, very good. Indeed, so too is the execution. In fact the whole damn thing is excellent. Watching this makes me want to read More’s Utopia. Despite recently finding his Dialogue, etc. (written whilst confined in The Tower) rather disappointing.
Allegedly More’s executioner begged his forgiveness.
An excellent, powerful, moving film. Whose subjects, perennially fascinating – as the Wolfe Hall books and TV shows attest – remain compelling.
I’m as volatile as potassium with water, and more up and down than the most dedicated hillwalker. Because of this, managing my emotional state can be tricky.
I’ve had a rough time recently. And coming out of it is taking longer than one would wish for. Two very big and related issues at present are extreme exhaustion and near total lack of motivation.
So, it’s nice to think back to times not too long ago, when I was happy. Every now and then, I’m getting moments of contentment, again. And sometimes even outright happiness.
Anxiety is another factor that inhibits either equilibrium or happiness. And I’ve recently had plenty of it, for various reasons. One of which was the result of my car breaking down whilst working.
This was awful!
It turns out that the reason this fell out the way it did was that I didn’t call through the breakdown to the Amazon Flex support line during my shift. I reported it immediately – or so I thought – via the app. And phoned it in the following day.
Amazon Flex no like-ee! And it went down on record as a ‘terms of service violation’. Which is bizarre, as it wasn’t that at all.
That’s more like it. Back to perfection!
I had a week or so without work whilst my car was fixed. And have been back at work now about a week. Every day I’ve been checking my Dashboard/Standing. Hoping for and expecting to see an upturn.
Finally, today, it’s happened. Phew! What a relief.
FOOTNOTE:
How strange!?
An intriguing footnote to this anxiety inducing episode is that Amazon appear to have expunged it altogether! How odd. It’s as if it never happened. I find that bizarre. But I’m glad.
