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.