Movie Chatter

In a former episode of the BBC documentary Who Do You Think You Are? the journalist Anita Rani explored her family's experiences of the partition of India. It was a moving piece of television for it underlined the chaos , violence and misery the forced migrations of the Sikh, Muslim and Hindu populations as Pakistan was forged out of the India subcontinent.
The " story" how Lord Moutbatten oversaw this move to independence has recently been made into a film.The  Viceroy's House, which we had the misfortune to sit through last night, is an attempt to show the human side of " Partition" through the experiences of the Indian staff who served the British hoi polloi.
Directed by Gurinda Chadra, the whole thing feels like a awkward mash up of Downton Abbey  with a Bollywood  melodrama as the Indian actors seem to overplay the drama whilst actors such as Gillian Anderson ( playing a rather forward thinking Lady Moutbatten) underplay beautifully.
And one is left feeling that the melodrama portrayed by the servants rather trivialised the real and very terrible tragedy Partition brought to two new nations.

The dishy Manish Dayal with Huma Queresi 

The Prof harrumphed his way through The Viceroy's House and shook his head when this trailer was shown just before the main feature

Described thus
"A Dog's Purpose" shares the soulful and surprising story of one devoted dog who finds the meaning of his own existence through the lives of the humans he teaches to laugh and love." 
The Prof could see me sobbing within the first minute and said gruffly
" Not one for you then"
I agreed

Anyhow to finish we have gay Disney! What a palaver over Gaston's fat little Queen side kick Le Frou! It's all been too much about nothing ,especially as the Russians have got their knickers in a
twist about it.......what no one seems to realise that Le Frou is the second gay character in Disney
No one has mentioned Ursula from The Little Mermaid! 
Now if she wasn't a fucking drag queen my dick's a kipper!

Hey ho! 

Flex Them Muscles!

The Prof has just gone to the gym for a 1:1 session with the fitness coach.
No doubt his mentor is a buff 22 year old called Luke who has thighs like tree trunks.
I 'm not jealous of a gym bunny no older than a pair of my socks.
I've got staying power.

Without the Prof around for an hour the cottage is quiet. The radio has been turned off and the windows opened to the sunshine and the crows bickering in the Church trees.
I've got my coffee, the dogs have been walked and fed and it's time to sit and think.

I spoke to a guy this morning who lost his wife suddenly. She had been ill for sure, and I suspect was expected to die at some point but he lost her when he and I expect she was not ready.
He knows I am a nurse and asked me questions I was in no way in a position to answer but what I could share was the simple fact that younger people compensate for their disease or their condition when they are poorly, so often deteriorate quickly and drastically when their reserves fail them.
Sometimes, no mater what is done nothing can change the final outcome.

The man shook my hand firmly after our conversation. I don't know if it was my words that helped or just the chance for him to ask the question that gave him some comfort.
Grief needs an outlet me thinks.

When he drove off, I realised that I didn't even know his name.

As I type this Bulldog and Welsh terrier bitch, 

Share a place in the sun

She's Home!

I knew things were going to be alright when I walked into the vets at teatime tonight.
Winnie was holding court behind the reception desk with the office staff and vets alike.
She was lapping up the attention like Bette Davis at a cocktail party!
" She has quite a fan club here" the Sweet receptionist told me
"And one around the world too!" I told her explaining Going Gently
" A dog on a blog" one of the vets chirped up.

Winnie saw me and sashayed over to say hello,moments later she led me to the exit with an impressively powerful pull. She wanted to go home.


And home we came.

Getting Picked Last For Games.

We need a change of subject today.....it's all been a bit too much....an emotional vet based jacuzzi .
I will post " Winnie News" later but for now we shall talk about the knotty subject of being picked last for games!
When I posted the amazing photo of the " clay people" two days ago, a senior nurse from my hospital tagged it with the byline " staff of ITU waiting for the allocation"
It got me thinking.
At every shift handover the ten nursing staff coming on to duty will stand in a rough line at the end of the ward. The nurse in charge will then allocate each member of staff to their respective patient taking into account skill mix, experience, continuity and request.
It sounds slightly old fashioned but it works in this context.
Being a very part time member of the team I am often the last to be allocated.
The ritual always reminds me of being picked for games when I was eleven.

I was never picked last for games as a kind but I was down there with the fat kids for sure. It's a memory of shame that still resonates some forty years later!
Hopeless at football and rugby I was always picked third or fourth boy or so from last. Only two obese lads and a skinny boy with gross coordination problems were left slumped, shamed and sad against the external wall of the sports hall when the sporty , tall boy leaders picked their teams in a ritual full of misery for the untalented and unpopular.
I was always grateful for not being last but miserable that I was as good as! So to speak.

I doubt schools continue with this ritual anymore. I do hope that they don't -for the negativity of allocation does remain with you into adulthood despite being ably camoflagued by humour and " confidence" .

News

I popped in to Tescos this morning and when I was perusing the cheese counter a woman I didn't know tapped me on the shoulder and asked " Is Winnie ok?"
Such is the power of bulldogs.

The vet rang me at 2.30 to tell me that Winnie had pulled through the operation and the anaesthetic.
" Are you happy with her" I asked
" Yes, she's still breathing" was the pragmatic reply.
The sweet receptionist was more effusive " She's blew me a kiss" she told me in full giggly mode.

Hey ho 

Field For The British Isles

I had a messy split from an abusive relationship in the late 1990s.
For many reasons it was a very bad time.
Friends like Bel Ami, who often comments here, got me through the days.

I remember one particular miserable morning, a dark, dank, typically wet South Yorkshire morning, where I found myself in town. I was aimless and fed up and not even a mooch around Cole Brothers could lift my mood, so I eventually ambled up West Street to the University bookshops, then took myself to Weston Park where I found myself at the  Park's Museum.
Antony Gormley's instillation piece Field For The British Isles was advertised as being on show so on impulse I went to see it.

In one vast room 40, 000 little humanoid figures stood on the floor and looked at me with little blank eyes.
The effect was instantaneous and unexpectedly profound .
It was an amazing experience.
I cannot quite explain just why it warmed my heart.
Perhaps the instillation had something powerful to say about solidarity, or just simple humanity..but even though the figures were just , in essence , little morphs in human form they had the power to lift the spirits and to create a smile.

Now THAT was ART

  

http://www.antonygormley.com/resources/essay-item/id/108

Update

Blog something and an animal will always prove you to be a liar.
Winnie deteriorated late morning and has been admitted to the surgery to be " physically optimised" before theatre tomorrow.
She was incredibly sanguine about the whole situation and checked each one of her fellow surgical patients before bedding down herself with a heavy sigh.
She was making tired moo moo eyes at the sweet receptionist as I left.

Badders

I can hardly move my hips.
My knees feel like shit too!

But it was worth it!
During my Sheffield days I used to play badminton a couple of times a week. My partner, a diminutive Yorkshireman called Mike (who was built like a Staffordshire Bull terrier ) then worked for British Telicom in the city centre so I used to play at Pond's Forge sport's centre, one of the "White Elephant"  sports facilities developed for the World Student Games in 1990.
I used to be a fair player

Now I have piled on the weight, developed a dodgy knee and have not played for fourteen years or so, so it was with a heavy heart that I pulled on my elasticated joggers and new trainers and dug out my old racket.
I was convinced I was going to make a real tit of myself

The Prof goes to the University gym every day, and is physically so much fitter than me so as we squared up on the badminton court he was all buff and confident and I looked like a jellyfish wrapped up in muslin.
Thank goodness for muscle memory for I may have sweated like a hot pig and sounded like an asthmatic buffalo but I had not forgotten how to play the game and despite everything I kind of beat the Prof into the ground!
I enjoyed myself.
A great panacea to the ills of the day!

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Postscript. I finally spoke to the Irish Vet this morning and we shall work towards Winnie getting Spayed at some point. Obviously there are many ifs and buts before that point, and I am fully aware that any operation may well finish the old gal off, but I feel that I owe it to her to try one last time.
Things I know can change very quickly, that is the way of infections, but at the moment, although sleepy, she is eating and drinking and taking her antibiotics without complaint.