The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and name that hen

I have always enjoyed the Academy Awards over the years! the false sincerity, the intense speeches, the awful nominees for best song! it is a bit of a tradition with me!

Who could forget Sally Field yelling "You Like me! You Like me" when she won best actress! or the deaf children from the Spencer Tracey school for the deaf signing the words to the film song "You light up my life" ( only to find out later that they were not deaf at all). I will always remember Whoopie Golderg add libbing her way through the 1999 ceremony in that red dress and every year I shed a tear when they play that old clip obituary piece with the names of the recently departed shown one after another!
I was sad in a way that the glitz had been quashed from the recent Golden Globe awards in Holywood on Sunday. The support by actors and other artistic staff of the Screen writers strike is no doubt a good thing but I hope that the Oscars will be safe in April!
Mind you, it is more difficult to actually watch the ceremony anymore as not many tv channels will actually show it, but I am hoping that Sky will come up trumps!


Anyhow I digress! I was glad to see that the film version of the Jean-Dominique Bauby novel The Diving Bell and the Butterfly won best direction for Julian Schnabel. The novel is an amazing unsentimental autobiography of a man totally paralysed by the severest of strokes. The account of his perceptions of his hospital care is sobering, at times shocking and provides lesions to all health care professionals that read it, in a similar vein to the psychiatric care bible Sans Everything by Russel Barton. The Barton book (written in the dark 1960 days of psychiatric care) was a milestone of my R.M.N. training, as it provided me with a horrific glimpse into the abuse that was endemic in the old asylum system.
I am looking forward in seeing how Schnabel adapts the Bauby novel, having the paudit for the Golden Globe members hopefully means that he has produced a great film.

ps Carol wanted to know the hens' names, so to keep her happy, here goes:

The Black hookers (the generic name for 6 black rocks who all look the same)
The Andrews Sisters (4 Sussex-whites)
The Nolan Sisters ( 4 red rockets)
Robina (the oldest hen- a Black speckled)
Glen Close,Trinny and Suzanna and Raquel Welsh ( red/golden hybrids)
Blanche,Beatrice and Rose (black and white hybrids)
Whoopie Goldberg (Grey hen)
Baby Jane (Grey speckled)
and Mildred Pierce (white speckled)

Hope that answers your questions!