13 Reasons Why; Tape 2, Side A

Watched this with my son, and it makes me want to read the book again.   He appears to be hooked, and he was happy to talk about this episode which dealt in part with the objectification of women.  While my son blamed our gender for this, I did have to point out that not all men objectify women, and some women are seen to encourage objectification.  

However, almost all would agree that the inappropriate and unwanted body contact that occurred in this episode is wrong.  I am sure that there are a few morons who will disagree.  Watching this with my daughter a few years ago allowed me to broach the topic of how some men will wrongly view attire as permission giving.  We agree that women should not be subject to harassment and since then, she has been more aware of what she has worn, though we agreed that some men will find any excuse to assault women.  

I do not know who he will identify with in this series.  Myself, I now am one of the parents, but as a child, looking at the first series, I would have been a much less cool mix of Clay Jensen and Tyler Down.  In fact, I would not have featured in it due to be being such a socially inept nerd.  

He was upset that we were not going onto watch the next episode, but it was time for bed.

COVID-19 & vaccination

I feel that I have to make a post on this again.  People continue to deny that COVID exists, or in a latest series of tweets, one person is stating that side effects from the vaccine are being covered up.

Just a reminder, COVID-19 exists.  It has killed loads.  I have treated patients during the Swine Flu pandemic as well as other bad years of influenza, and this is worse.  I help care for a nursing home which was devastated when COVID managed to get in.  Many died quickly and thanks to planning, peacefully.  However, the surgery I work in has had many patients admitted to hospital. None who we have sent in have affected by the shortness of breath that this condition causes compares this to influenza as those patients have already had to ring 999 to get there.

Our local hospital now has less people affected by COVID-19 in it.  The children's ward at one time had adult patients on it and there was a time that emergency operations were not being carried out, instead the only operations taking place being life or death ones.  When people talk about the death rates of COVID and compare it to influenza, they forget that for many, death does not come quickly.  Patients who die, and those who survive, often are given help to breathe.  This can be oxygen, CPAP, or ventilation, and the amount of people requiring this has overwhelmed the NHS in our area.  Such support can require stays in hospital of weeks, again, something that was not seen on such a large scale in any of the years that Flu has caused strain to the NHS.

But onto the claims of this tweeter, stating that vaccinations are causing side effects that are being covered up.  They are wrong.  There is no way of knowing for certain if there are going to be long term consequences of the vaccine, but we do know that there are long term consequences from surviving COVID infections.  People spreading scare stories about vaccinations that can save lives when we know that there are both short and long term consequences of COVID are, to put it politely, silly.

    

White Tiger

Yesterday, I surprised my wife.  It is our anniversary weekend (we started to go out together may years ago) and she had wanted something special.  She actually wanted a themed night much like last weekend, but instead I tried to surprise her by getting afternoon tea.  

Sadly, I had left it too late to sort this out.  I had postponed this on Wednesday when after working at the vaccination hub, I fell as asleep on getting home and had to sort out a flat tyre.  On Thursday, I found that I had left things too late, but after searching the internet, I found an afternoon tea delivery service.  

Sadly, when it came, it was not up to the standards of last weekend.  It was still nice, but nothing as spectacular that my wife had arranged.  My wife did get a surprise present though which she loved later in the day.

As for the children, my son appears to be content playing on the Nintendo Switch and talking to his friends.  My daughter had a socially distanced walk with a friend of hers.  I had met her mother working at the vaccination hub and I was told in no uncertain terms that I was not allowed to say anything to the friend due to fears of embarrassing  her!

My wife and I did watch White Tiger.  I have not read the book and she says that the film is a different experience to it.  But as a film it was quite powerful.  It deals with the issues of poverty, corruption and discrimination very well and the end is mixed, not being quite happy, not not being sad either.  I do think that we need to consider getting the children to watch this, but they may not be too keen to do so.  It is not the most cheerful of films and we may get more out of them by making them watch other films instead.  But the appetite from the children to do so is not that keen.  

13 Reasons Why, Tape 1, Side B

I watched this with my son last night.  We watched the rest of the first episode first of course.  I think that he might be hooked.  He is more sympathetic to Hannah than I am about her reasons/excuses why.  It was nice to spend time with him again, and hopefully he will continue to watch the other episodes with me.  I may even watch the third series with him, the series I disliked the most.  I have yet to watch the final one so it may be that I dislike that more, but I doubt it.

I know that this song is not about suicide, but it does have the sentiment about missing the departed, an issue that comes across a lot in 13 Reasons Why. 

The Princess Bride

Our family film today was The Princess Bride, an appropriate film for Valentines Day.  Sadly, my son did not watch it, and I was surprised that my daughter did.  She tends not to enjoy Damsel in Distress films but watched this till the end.  I have wanted to watch this film for many years, but have never watched it, until today.  Any description of this film has to be put in context of how such films were in the past, as well as the fairy tales that they are based on.  

It is a magical fairy tale based on honour and with many characters driven by stereotype.  But the way the film is put together is amazing, as it finds the right balance between humour and adventure without being cringeworthy.  I understand that people have considered a remake of the film, but it is inconceivable that the same balance will be found.

When it comes to the family, we had a Valentines Tea for lunch which my wife had ordered.  She also got flowers from me which she added to some of the flowers that she had got on Friday.  The children are looking forwards to having a week off school and they have been told to wear the braces that they have been given during the week, but also to enjoy as one of them is going to be worked harder than they have been so far in this lockdown.

Contagion

Three things to discuss in this post. The film, the family and the innocence of President Trump.

First of all, the film.  Contagion is a film I was not able to watch before.  Being a healthcare worker, I get anxious seeing patients because any of them may have COVID.  Some are more blasé than others about this, and seeing both high and low risk patients sets my nerves on edge.  I decided to watch it because of how Matt Hancock said that it taught him things.  Watching it, I can see how.  Back in 2011, while governments were looking at pandemic influenza as the cause of a global crisis, this looked at a cross over infection as being the cause of a pandemic.  It identified the risks posed to those around infected people, and also the fatal consequences for healthcare workers (which is why it was good that I did not watch it sooner).  It even dealt with how people would endanger lives by spreading fake news.  Eerily accurate, it is almost as if someone had a crystal ball in 2011, but saying that, training since Swine Flu has influenced this film.

Next, the family.  My wife got some flowers yesterday for Valentines Day which I did not get to see until today as I got home late last night.  They look amazing but I am worried about who sent them.  We had to go to Mersea Island as part of my job as I had to visit an undertakers.  Thanks to COVID bodies are being moved out of Colchester due to issues storing them.  Later we dressed up for a meal while listening to music from the 70’s and 80’s.  It was nice all of us talking and chatting together.  My dressing up was marred by two scars which Leia gave me this morning on my nose.  The one on the left side was from the morning when she greeted me and got overexcited, the other was when she helped my daughter when we had a play fight.

Trump has been found innocent of inciting a riot.  The attack on the capitol buildings in the US was planned and premeditated, but despite the rhetoric leading up to it, he was deemed innocent.  Which means that Biden should be able to do what he likes in the last few weeks of his presidency.

And last of all, a joke...

At school one day, Little Johnny’s teacher asks the class to use the word “contagious” in a sentence…

Cindy raises her hand. “Yes, Cindy?” She answers, “I was at the dentist’s office with my mom, and she said not to play with the toys in the waiting room because the other kids were contagious.”

“Very good, Cindy!” the teacher said, “Anyone else want to try?” Samantha raises her hand. “Yes, Samantha?” She answers, “My dad tells me not to yawn because then everybody else yawns. He says yawning is contagious.”

“Excellent work, Samantha! Very creative,” the teacher praises. “Okay, one more volunteer.” Little Johnny raises his hand. “Yes, Johnny?”

“Well,” he says, “I was helping my dad in the yard last week, and we saw the neighbor painting his house. He was using a small brush, so I asked my dad, ‘Daddy, why is he using such a small brush?’ and he says, ‘I don’t know son, but it’s gonna take that contagious.'”

13 Reasons Why, tape one (series one)

It should be side one really, not tape one.  I have read the book and watched the series with my daughter.  I am glad I did so as it did bring up many issues.  

I was quite annoyed after reading the book as well as I felt that Hannah did not have a reason to end her like and ruin that of those who loved her by doing so, but rather it was 13 excuses why.  One of the episodes is more upsetting for me, but I will post about that when we come to it.  I had read the book because a patient I was seeing before lockdown used it as inspiration to try to kill themselves.  Reading the book was harrowing, but the series is different, and while not as good as the book in some ways, it is much better when it comes to showing the devastation that suicide leaves on those left behind.  The patient was annoyed that Netflix cut the suicide scene itself, and when I used the series to show how suicide harms the survivors, then their case if they go through with it, their siblings and parent, they stopped watching it.

Anyway, my son has talked about watching this before, and the decision of my wife and I was that he has to watch it with one of us and is not allowed to watch it by himself, a message reinforced by the show itself at the beginning.  We were not able to watch all of it as we started to watch it late in the day, but it was nice to watch something with him again.  We finished watching Star Wars Rebels on the weekend and he is not keen on watching the rest of Star Wars with me.  He is aware that this means that we have to talk about what happened in the episodes.  Hopefully, it will not be too traumatic for him to do so.