Dobble champion

I am the dobble champion of the house! My daughter, to be fair is normally the best at it and I agreed to play a game before I went to work. She caught be dealing her more cards than I had so we dealt everything fairly and my son joined us to play. I was playing for second place and all three of us were suprised when I won! Needless to say, I have no plans to play this again!

The Hunt

I had seen a few seconds of this film, and it intrigued me. So I watched it. It is a fun filled gore fest that does look at the idiocy that has become cancel culture and the Twitter wars between the left and the right. It is not a film for those who like a complicated plot or intelligent dialogue. It is a very well made gore fest which I would gladly watch again. I would have been happy to pay to watch it in a cinema, but I do not think that there would be anyone in the house who would be willing to watch it with me!

It is not the fault of Putin that he is invading Ukraine

As predicted, Ukraine, when surrounded by the Russian army, has "started" a war. Despite facing overwhelming odds, they have attacked and Russia has had "no choice" but to respond. As in 1939 when "Poland attacked Germany" in similar circumstances, the response has been swift and overwhelming. Officially, I understand that Ukraine provoked this by attacking the Donbass republics that Putin had recently recognised. At the time of typing this Chernobyl may fall to the Russians who appear have attacked from neutral Belarus.  This of course in addition to being attacked from its borders with Russia and the Donbass region itself. 

When it comes to the expressed intent of Russia which is denazification, that will mean that regime change is required.  And that means the end of Ukraine being a democracy as I doubt any leader imposed by Putin would have the support of a population that has been attacked by Russia.  

I do wonder if Ukraine would be facing this invasion, if it had kept its nuclear weapons as it had disarmed in the past, just as I do wonder if it would have kept Crimea and the Donbass if it had retained its deterrent.  If Ukraine had kept its nuclear weapons, may be it would be safe from being part (or bits of it being part) of a greater Russia. 

The Pacific

First of all, my wife and I went out for a meal. I was busy working from home today and Leia found this annoying as she wanted to get into the garden and attack the birds that she felt were destroying the garden. Needless to day, I was working so could not attend to her desires as often as she needed. She has got her mojo back and if anything, has more energy than she had before she had her operation. Normally, this settles dogs down, but it has had the opposite effect with her. When it came to dinner, we got a takeaway for the children and as my daughter did not want the smell of curry in the house, my wife and I went out for a meal. It was nice to get away again and while not as posh a place as it had been before, Curry Leaves served us great food. My wife was grateful that I had booked out the whole restaurant for her! 

 

When it comes to The Pacific, I have now finished watching the series, though I have to decide which of the bonus features I am to watch. It was a good series to watch, not as good as Band of Brothers, but more educational. I was aware of aspects of the war against Japan in World War II, but this taught me a lot, including a portrayal of how horrific war is. Hopefully this will not be an issue in Ukraine. Anyway, it was a great series to watch and I am glad my mother got it as a box set for me.

It is not the fault of Putin that he has had to invade Ukraine

I have listened to many people on the radio explain that the reason Putin has invaded Ukraine is because of the USA and the UK. They state all sorts of things, that NATO are to have a base there, that NATO wants to start a war but basically, NATO has no interest in defending Ukraine using military force.  Just like NATO did not defend Georgia when it had a conflict with Georgia which resulted in Georgia losing Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Member nations are happy to back Ukraine with sanctions and providing weapons but that is it. 

What has happened in Eastern Europe is akin to the UK invading Calais because France might join an alliance of its choice.  Or re-invading Eire for the same reason.  And then annexing it. 

I hear lots of excuses like this, notably with domestic violence. It is not the fault of the abuser that they are carrying out abuse. It is the fault of the victim. Or someone else. The abuser claims that they were forced to do what they did, that they had no choice. But they did.

So remember, it is not the fault of Putin that Russia had a conflict with Georgia in 2008, or that it invaded Crimea in 2014, and also I am sure that it is not his fault that so many of those against him die prematurely.

Chernobyl

Just finished watching Chernobyl. I guess now is the right time to watch it as it may be part of Greater Russia soon as opposed to being part of an independent and democratic Ukraine. I had not watched it in 2019 but this was a series highly recommended at work. After watching it, I see why. I was strange seeing so many great British actors in it. The story they told was amazing. I remember as a child hearing about it and the radioactive cloud that drifted across Europe. Here is hoping that no more radiation is an issue, be it from an accident or war. On that topic, my mother has been concerned about war and the willingness of the west for it. I had to reassure her that the west is not interested in sending troops to defend Ukraine. It is interesting but sad to hear how many on the left are defending the actions of Putin, a man who pretends to be democratic, who has opponents who mysterously die and who has caused the oppression of LQBT+ rights in Russia. For the record, I think that the people of Ukraine have the right to elect their own leaders in free and fair elections. If areas like Crimea which to break away, it should be in referendums that are also free and fair, as opposed to under Russian occupation. 

Trans-sports

Just listening to Rachel Johnson on LBC about Trans sports. I agree and disagree with her on this.

First of all, she is wrong to discuss the case of Lia Thomas and to ignore the success of Iszac Henig.  She is not alone in this but this does not make it excusable.  For the record, Iszac Henig, born female and now a trans-man beat XY men in a swimming competition and had refused to take testosterone before he competed.  Lia Thomas, born a man and now a trans-woman beat her competition as well.

Second, she discussed testosterone as the issue.  While it is partly, the concerns I have with trans-athletes is more muscle mass.  Those who have an XY chromosomal make up, on average have more of a muscle mass that those who are XX.  We see this with the Cockcroft Gault equation which looks at creatinine clearance, this being affected by muscle mass.

Third, she has called for a Tran-Olympics.  Personally, I feel that this should not happen, but there should be an open category where those who are male women or transgender can compete.

I know some will consider me transphobic for my view that Trans-athletes should not complete with women.  But I am willing to listen to view on this.  I do consider any discussion invalid if it does not consider Iszac Henig however.

The Barnby Swan

We used to live in northern Suffolk and on occasion used to eat here.  My wife and booked lunch here and the plan was to take the children and Leia.  However my son decided to stay as he needed to tidy up his room.  He has spent his half term holiday allegedly tidying his room and I offered to help him by getting some black bin bags, filling them and taking the contents to the dump. I did intend to go through his room when we returned but unless I was too late to do so and take the contents to the dump. I intend to go through his room when we returned but unless I was too late to do so and take the contents to the dump.  My daughter stayed behind as she did not feel up to this.

The journey to the restaurant took 90 minutes and it was really nice to just drive with my wife as she relaxed.  The food was good as was the service.  I hope that it does well as it was not full when we went.

Afterwards we went to Beccles to visit the Swan House which was where we ate before I proposed outside the church next to it.  

All in all, a good day together l 

Ending Safe Spaces for women

 

I have recently had some discussions (again) about safe spaces for women on the internet. To be fair, I added myself to a discussion about this, but while discussing the issues raised by this, I was tagged on Twitter by someone who had created a video. (Turned out that my tweets did not feature in the video.) Basically, Scotland was asked to pause gender recognition reforms by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. This has created a predictable outcry. Issues with safe spaces have been raised by JK Rowling, who has been labelled a transphobe by some. To put it simply, she raised concerns that any man can pretend to be Trans so that they can gain access to safe spaces for women with and without a Y chromosome. If men can do this, it then means that there are no safe spaces for women, be that with or without a Y chromosome. Apparently raising this as an issue is being transphobic.

Kintsu and our late Valentines meal

My wife and I went out for a meal last night. It was our late Valentines meal as I was not able to guarantee that I would be high one time on Monday night itself.

My wife and I went out for a meal last night. It was our late Valentines meal as I was not able to guarantee that I would be high one time on Monday night itself.

She had been hard at work during the day and as noted in yesterday’s entry I had a more relaxing day. I had booked this meal in advance, and she did not know where she was going to. I made the mistake of telling my daughter where she was going to go for a hint. While this ended the surprise to my wife she did like to know where she was going especially as we both love eating here. The food as before was exemplary. Full of flavour create presentation and we will not have it at all.

 The food as before was exemplary. Full of flavour create presentation and we will not have it at all.

I drive which I have my wife the chance to relax and chill did a great bottle of red which we took home and this gave me the chance to finish it off.  Time like this is precious together and having a great meal with the best woman in the world was a great night.

This Is Going To Hurt

Today was a day off work which was taken due to half term.  I had intended to do a bit of work, but instead watched This Is Going To Hurt with Leia and my daughter.  Leia is starting to improve and today has started to play fight.  On Monday my wife took her to the vet and was told she is almost better.  We were told that we could gradually work her back to longer walks, but that she had to wear her body suit. So yesterday on the walk that was longer that she is meant to be on, I forgot to unbutton her body suit.  I realised after she started to open her bowels.  So she has no body suit now!

When it comes to This Is Going To Hurt, it is a great series.  My daughter and I watched all the episodes together, though she felt that it was more horrifying than any horror film she has yet to see.  Her view is that getting teenage girls to watch this will guarantee the use of contraception.  A particularly interesting moment was when she learned what uterine prolapse is, though the scenes involving childbirth were quite distressing for her.  If she ever becomes a doctor in the future, I do not see her working in obstetrics.  As a series, I thought that it was great and in general, medically accurate.  At times, it was too accurate and brought back memories that I should never forget.  

My son has spent the day trying to tidy up his room, and a few other jobs.  None were completed but considering the state of his room, that is not surprising!

Why are they up?

Was working from home today, which I thought would be fine as half term has begun. I thought that the children would be in bed, so imagine my surprise when I found that the headache that my daughter had yesterday had gone and that she was making cookies. Even more surprising, my son woke up as well. It is a challenge getting him up in the mornings for school and to see him up before nine on a half-term Sunday was a pleasant shock.  They kept quiet during the calls that I had to make and the cookies were great.

Piece and Ukraine

The world has been worried about the risk of Russia invading Ukraine. I think that is silly. Russia already invaded Ukraine, not just Crimea, but also in effect, the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic. But Russia will not invade Ukraine without provocation. I suspect if war happens, Ukraine will attack Russia, and Russia will respond with the forces which just so happen to be on its borders and taking part in exercises in Belarus. We have in effect bought peace in our time by letting Russia keep its gains, but we may need to let it have more.

CODA

Had a bad day at work today. But people pulled round and supported me as did my wife. I got home early which confused Leia as she was expecting me later. And then after eating, my wife and I watched CODA and opened a bottle of wine that I had been given for my birthday.  The wine was amazing, but sadly has gone now.  

CODA was great and I understand why it has won so many awards.  It put the childhood of my wife and I in context.  We have worked hard to ensure that our kids do not face the same challenges.  I am very glad that I watched the film and would gladly watch it again.  And I would have had no issues if I had paid to watch it in the cinema.  

Boris Johnson and Trumpism

It looks like the gamble that Boris Johnson made by spreading fake news is to work.  He has been blamed for inciting the mob who attacked Starmer, but the only people to blame are those who subjected him to such vile harassment. 

People have been turning against Keir Starmer due to the allegations made. Not just those who accosted him outside parliament, but normal people as well. 

The downside of Boris Johnson behaving like Trump though is that other nations may realise just how untrustworthy he is and that will affect how the UK is viewed in the future. 

But it looks that if he keeps making allegations, he will get elected again.

Jimmy Carr (again)

Right, I have watched his show.  I loved it.

As I have stated before, my wife and daughter do not consider him to be funny and they find most of his jokes to be offensive and out of order.  They are not prudes and would be considered by many to have a slightly twisted sense of humour.  

His joke about how The Holocaust included the Roma Gypsies was 54 minutes into his set. After his joke, he also explained why he made it. Before then he had made jokes about rape, mental health, child abuse and so many other taboo subjects which many on the internet appear not offended by.

My daughter and wife do not just dislike Jimmy Carr, they consider the humour of Frankie Boyle to be offensive to.  

I still love both, they bring a huge smile to my face.  I understand why people do not like comedians like them, especially if they are the subject of their jokes. I do not understand why others who are not in the groups affected only pick on one subject that they joke about when they cover so many inappropriate topics.  And I do not think that either should be cancelled or censored based on what I have seen of both.

The Voyeurs

First of all, family.

A trip to see both grandmothers (and one grandfather) took place.  When we saw my mother we also got to see my brother and his girlfriend who had just got back from a trip to Portugal.  He was disappointed that his favourite member of our family had been left at the dog sitters.  We could have taken her, but she is still recovering from her operation.  It was great meeting his partner, we have heard lots about her and she appeared really nice.  It is hard of course to get to know someone in the few minutes that we met her, and my wife warned me not to misbehave.  My kids were a bit stressed out by my mother as she talked about biology and I steered the conversation into areas they preferred were ignored.  After, we went to see the parents of my wife and had lunch there.  The interaction that the kids have with their three grandparents is different and today it was interesting to see it.  

The rest of the family enjoyed lunch more than I did.  Tom, Dick and Harry’s looked amazing. The pasta that my daughter had was much nicer than my burger, and she enjoyed the scallops than I had for a starter.  My son loved his food as did my wife.  I guess if we are in the area, we might return, but I would prefer to try somewhere else.

Anyway, we are now at home.  Her dog minder (who used to be a vet nurse) said that she appears to be in discomfort still, and we also see that as she is not as active at home as she normally is.  A problem is that we have been told to stop her from jumping on things or running about to help her heal.  From our experience with our children when they were younger means that we think that she will jump and run about if she is not in pain.  

I am about to start the ironing but before I do this, I will just post on the film I watched yesterday.  Many consider The Voyeurs to be an implausible film, and in part, they are right.  My daughter warned me that it does not start as well as it ends.  It is a rude film with lots of flesh coming together, but once I get over how annoying one character is, I actually enjoyed it.  A perverted film that has an interesting message (which my daughter has not acted on), I would watch it again.

   

Jimmy Carr

First of all, not much an update on the children since earlier I the week.  I have been torturing them with this puzzle, but both have solved it now.  Leia is recovering well from her operation but is not yet back to normal.  I have been watching Killing Eve with my daughter. Not sure that it is appropriate for her to watch it, but if she does kill me in the future we can look back to this post to show that it was my own fault.

Onto Jimmy Carr.  He has been facing a lot of comments about his holocaust joke about Roma Gypsies.  I initially stated  that those who are outraged by it appeared okay with his jokes about rape, incest, cancer, race and abortion, but I remembered that those groups affected by his jokes have every right to be offended by him.  I also forgot that my wife does not find him funny, just as she does not find Frankie Boyle or Little Britain to be acceptable, stating that they are too cruel.  She has a point and we accept our differences with this, just as I accept that my children are unlikely to every like them as well. But, Jimmy Carr is an equal opportunity offender and no one is spared.  I do understand the outrage this week, but does that mean that those who are not affected by prejudice towards the Roma community or other travellers, were okay with his other jokes? 

Holding politicians to account

It has been an interesting time in UK politics.  Speaking to someone on Twitter, they stated that it us up to us to hold our politicians to a higher standard.

The problem is that the higher standard varies depending on the group.

We noted that in the UK, when it came to Brexit, that standard was to follow through on concerns about immigration, an issue that one of the pro-Brexit groups pushed in a manner based on that of the Nazi's.  While some issues on both sides were opinions, some issues were outright lies, notably the suggestion about NHS funding.  

However, in the UK, we are lucky in that QAnon is not as much of a factor here as it has been in the USA.  Politicians there are being held the the standard set by Q.  Personally, I think that Q is a Russian mole who has succeeded in hamstringing the USA and we saw how close Q came to the overthrow of Democracy in January 2021.  Now Republican politicians who try to meet the standards of decency that existed before Trump are considered to be traitors.  Instead, we have a situation where QAnon, which claims to be acting against a paedophilic ring are backing a politician who had allegedly trafficked a child themselves (though he stopped this once he was aware of her age, until she became legal according to his friend).

Just one thing though, I think that it is unfair to hold Boris Johnson to that higher standard.  He does not have the experience of having to cope with the consequences of this actions.  Throughout his life, he has managed to avoid true consequences for his actions. Although he has been fired twice for lying in the past, the process was not as drawn out as he is going through now.  While others would feel shame about lying to the nation, I honestly think that he is of the view that he has done nothing wrong, because, in his mind, he has done nothing wrong before.  

Valentine's Day, the 2010 film

Last night, after watching Runaway Bride, my daughter and I watched Valentines Day with Leia.  We wanted to ensure that she felt as if we were looking after her.  My daughter also had wanted to watch this film for a while anyway, I suspect because Taylor Swift is in it.  

I had watched this in the past and it was a film that I loved.  However, I forgot enough that lots of it surprised me.  My daughter did not like one part of the end, but I have to say that I loved it.  I am a soppy romantic and the simple message of this is that Love is Love.  And for the record, my favourite couple was on the plane.

I was concerned that Leia would be up all night as she slept a lot after her operation yesterday, but she had a peaceful night.  My only concern last night was that she had not done a wee or poo, but this morning on her very short walk, she opened her bowels.  Hopefully she will be fine.  Fingers crossed.

Runaway Bride

Before I review the film, an update on the family, and then a chat about PMQs.

As a family today has been a bit stressful. Leia had an operation. One of the conditions when we got her was that we would not breed from her. So today, she was sterilised.  We all live her and consider her to be such a good dog that we think that it is a shame that she cannot pass her genes on. She is calm, most of the time, listens (though could be better trained) and is so loving.  We know how Cockapoo’s can be from meeting others.  But after dropping my son off at school (he has not cycled in since he had COVID), I took her to the vet. She was growling at another dog while waiting in the car park, a huge one, but calmed down when I moved her forwards to sit next to me.  She was fine in the waiting room and only got nervous once in the treatment room. I was tearful telling her that I was sorry I stroked a cat yesterday and how much she has made me appreciate dogs.  

I worked from home afterwards and was more productive with no dog hassling me to get into the garden, but the house was empty without her. 

I did get to listen to PMQs where the Prime Minister dodged questions about this parties, refused to apologise about spreading fake news on Monday and when asked about people struggling to pay heating bills now to keep warm talked about Brexit!  Overall a poor performance from him, but he appeared to be buoyed by this ability to avoid consequences for his parties, and his lying being unchecked.

My son changed into his pyjamas after I collected him from school and would not change out of them.  Which meant that it was just my daughter and I who collected her. She appeared fine at first but started to whimper in the car. We had been told that she is not to run or jump and while we thought that this was impossible, she has been adorable as she has sat on us this evening. 

He completed his option choices and then we agreed to watch a film together, and my son stayed for the beginning. We thought it would be nice for Leia if we all stayed together but he left after dinner to do some homework. Instead my wife, daughter and I watched Runaway Bride.

I have to say, it was one of the better RomComs and I did enjoy it. Overall the message was that everyone can screw up, and the writing, directing and acting was brilliant. The chemistry between the two stars appears to have been the same as in another famous film starring the two.  I am glad that I watched it and I think that I may have not ever watched it before (I try to avoid RomComs normally).  One day, I may even be happy to watch it again and that would not be just because of the soundtrack.

Politicians and the truth

It is a sad state of affairs that a politician can repeatedly lie in parliament but if a politician calls them out on it, they are censured.  

Boris Johnson has rightly pointed out when this opponent Keir Starmer said something in parliament that was not true, this relating to the UK being part of the European Medicines Agency, something for which he has since apologised.  However, when he made an error about inflation in PMQ's, he did not apologise.  Yesterday, when challenged on the Sue Gray Report, our Prime Minister spread fake news.  

Ian Blackford, did not challenge him on this, but did so about this changing excuses for the Parties that he stated did not happen but attended not knowing that they were parties. He is not the first to do this.  Dawn Butler had done so before, and likewise, got into trouble for doing so.

So we are in a situation with UK politics, were our Prime Minister can lie in Parliament, and refuse to apologise if errors that he has spoken are brought up, but those who bring up the issue of how he is not honest do get into trouble.

I do not like it when people say all politicians lie.  But with rules like this, politicians are allowed to get away with doing so.