Aftershock

Terrible timing , I know, but tonight  I found myself over at Theatre Clwyd  watching an Asian Earthquake disaster movie.  Aftershock is the most expensive Chinese Movie made to date, and concentrates its story on the 30 odd years AFTERMATH of a real life Earthquake, namely the Tangshan quake of 1976 which killed over 240.000 people.

Happy Chinese factory worker and mother Yung Ni (Fan Xu ) is caught outside her apartment block with her husband as the Earthquake flattens the city. Her husband is killed trying to save their twins Fang den and Fang da, who are buried under tons of rubble. As rescuers try to save the children,  Yung Ni is given the impossible decision of which child she wants saving, and which one has to be left to die...a decision that haunts her and her family for the next three decades.

Yes it's basically Sophie's Choice with special effects....and within a  few minutes the audience is literally catapulted into one of the most frightening, harrowing and "realistic" disaster scenarios ever captured on film.

Unfortunately the rest of the epic story of how mom, and the rest of the family deal with the aftershock of her terrible decision , doesn't quite live up to the first twenty five minutes.

Having said this, there are some cracking tear jerking scenes (Fan Xu is especially good) but the family drama post catastrophe, for me , just didn't work as well I hoped it would.

Which is a shame

7/10
It was lovely to get back in the cinema !

Sure sexism

Now has anyone seen the tv advert/story that centres around a rich, powerful and attractive women choosing whether to wear a designer black dress for dinner at her swanky hotel.... She undresses ( without any conversation) a male bellhop and tests her selection of deodorants on him to see if that "unsightly" black stain marks his black uniform and then can be seen showing off her unblemished evening gown to the great and the good....

I hate this advert...I hate it was a passion........would it be at all permissible in today's advertising world, to have a man in a position of power, undressing a women who resides in a more a subservient role in order to test a cosmetic out on her?
.......with the risk of being a little sexist myself..and..I can hear a whole host of knickers being twisted here....I think NOT!...so why is it acceptable for a man to be potentially humiliated in this way?.....The answer to this is hidden by the subtle insertion of sex......the bellhop seems to actually enjoy being on the receiving end of this behaviour, a fact that angers me just a little more!

So many adverts now seem to be making men either the butt of a woman's joke, her power , or else seems to be emasculating them in some way..and to me it is just not acceptable...not in this day and age.
I thought we were perhaps past all this........
I guess I was wrong

Nearer Home

Nearer Home, the badgers that live in the field borders have turned their powerful claws and jaws upon the smallest and newest member of the field community with rather devastating results.
Overnight Eric, who had been housed in one of the brooder boxes was attacked....it was a no brainer.....literally nothing was left of him and his enclosure.....

another, albeit small home grown reminder that life can be very cheap eh?

Too Much News

The human cost of the Japanese Earthquake and tidal wave is just now showing itself above the initial stunning and oh-so-not- real visuals we have become accustomed to from several days ago.
The aerial shot of the giant wave reminded me of those CGI movie special effects that we have all have enjoyed , and the camera was just far enough away for the spectacle to be more exciting than  horrific.
This morning, on CNN I watched more home videos shot by the survivors themselves after the impressive early warning system had kicked in and warned the population of the small coastal town to evacuate to higher ground.
Suddenly the disaster is all made very human.

I am not going to bang on about any more about it. What more is there to say?........except how very lucky we are 

Eric

I wasn't going to blog again today. I've had a busy old time being all manly and cutting down fallen trees,building  bonfires and repairing fences.
I have also had another visitor to the field, who appeared carrying a pet basket.. Yeap another mouth to feed I thought,and I was right as the man asked me to take his unwanted silkie bantam cockerel-apparently he was crowing a little too much!

He is a scrawny little red head with a 1980's mullet
I have called the little fella, Eric

Winnie is a woman

We went out for dinner last night......it doesn't happen too often, but the treat was much appreciated and enjoyed as the food in our local restaurant The Barrow, was beautiful!
I enjoyed too many Pinot's and retired to bed happy and well filled at 10pm ( early for me)
This morning I felt fine so bounced onto the field with a spring in my step to let the animals out only to find Winnie, the white gander, quiet and noticeably lethargic in his goose house.
I coxed him out onto the grass and gave him some water which he drank politely and then he sat down with his big blue eyes carefully watching me.
I crept forward and stroked his head and gave him the once over.........it was not long before I found out his problem.....for out of his bottom protruded "his" first and rather large goose egg

A few small grunts later, and with me lending some ineffectual morale support, out popped Winnie's egg., which she sniffed at briefly before tottering off to the pond....

And me, Mr Smart arse was convinced that she was a gander!

Violence and sex

Its spring
and the testosterone is flying.
As usual the few males that inhabit the field are turning their heads towards sex and like drunken yobs that seem to frequent all of our towns, cities and villagers nowadays, the drakes and turkeys are turning to thuggery to get what they want.
As the local builder and odd job man  fixed our broken chimney (at a very reasonable rate I might add), I diverted myself from not being able to venture up his ladder to survey the work (I felt like a real old queen when I told him I was too frightened) and spent an hour or so bolting my small polytunnel to mother earth

small but beautifully formed

When my back was turned, petty rivalries and male posturing within the turkey ranks boiled over and Bingley the Bourbon red stag, escaped his enclosure and set upon the more timid and older Boris with Jane and Lizzy (his females) getting stuck in like two drunken slags on the Jeremy Kyle show.
This "pack" behaviour of "getting stuck in" seems to be a rather unpalatable feature of turkey society  and as usual it it the weakest ( in this case the gentle white females- Gloria and Theresa) that got caught in the crossfire and bore the brunt of the attack.

By the time I heard the cries of the injured, it was all but over.....The evil eyed Lizzy had pulled away (probably saying in turkey language "Leave him Bingley he's not worth it"!" with Jane in tow, but both females couldn't quite resist a final barrage of pecks (this time at a passing and totally innocent buff orphington)...precipitating my Sigourney Weaver-ish shout of "get away from her you Bitches!"....hummm very theatrical!

I found Boris hiding in the turkey house ruffled but otherwise ok....but Gloria had been pecked and clawed nastily and repeatedly on her back and wing and Theresa had a wound on her neck.

I shut Bingley away ( resolving myself to sell him and his bitches at the first opportunity-and smiled grimly that the money will go towards a goat!) as  I treated the wounded with some purple antibacterial spray.

Gloria and Theresa after the attack

Now all is peaceful and the female turkeys are mixing as though nothing had happened. Bingley is back in his enclosure and the hole in the fencing repaired. Despite having their beaks clipped, turkeys can inflict some damage when they have a mind to............The three trouble shooters will be going...the "for sale" poster has already been drafted......................

A Morale Booster

As you all know my brother and his wife are living with the daily grind that is Motor Neurone Disease. Laughs or even smiles can be few and far between at the moment, so I am sure my sister's latest blog entry has gone a long, long way in raising morale and eliciting a quiet chuckle. If you have a spare minute, go and see what she has done.........and leave her a comment
 see Supporting Andrew Blog
......my Brother's comment is worth a look too.............
A lovely little moment of kindness me thinks.................