Lewd Behaviour

Much has been made of the dreadful conduct of the rich and famous at that charity night at The Dorchester last night.
The sight of a men only night out where 300 men slavered over a bevvy of mini skirted hostesses ( who happened to agree to go to the night in question with matching skirts and knickers) makes me feel rather sick but I think it is important to have some balance here so I wanted to tell you of the time in 1999 when I went to a nightclub in Sheffield with a friend.
In a function room of the club there was a "female only" charity night taking place.
Male "exotic" dancers were on show, the ladies had a  basket meal, much too much to drink, a comedian and a raffle and
their behaviour would have made Caligula blush believe me!
My friend and I were molested, groped and goosed several times by some of these women as they staggered back from the loo ( and we were in a corridor at the time on the way to another bar!)
A barman had his shirt removed ( well ripped off!)
and I am sure an "oral act" was actually performed on one of the dancers in full view of the wife of the head of the council!
lets get a bit of balance here
bad behaviour is bad behaviour ! whatever sex you are
plain and simple.........lets not make it into a man hating moment please!

I can Sure Move For A Fat Lad

George ambling

Like I said yesterday, George was attacked by a staffie.
He wasn't injured, but the reason for this was luck more by good judgement.
We were lucky.
I had taken the dogs to the Dyserth Walkway which is a country walk on the former track of a hillside railway line. The walkway is popular with walkers, bikers and dog owners and can be rather busy so the independent Welsh Terriers and George are always placed on a lead.
Winnie, who is too friendly (and too big to attack) ambles along behind at her own pace.
It was dusk and as we returned to the car park, I let off George to sniff at the grass verge whilst I placed the other dogs in the car and had just closed the car door on them when I heard a man's harsh shout of "Come here!"
George was perhaps thirty feet away happily sniffing at a clump of grass and perhaps a hundred yards beyond him, down the walkway came the staffie at full pelt.
It meant business.
Everything happened very fast, as behind the staffie two scruffy young men and a teenage girl came running and I jumped up like Fatima Whitbread, running from the opposite direction. The Staffie pounced on George a couple of seconds before I got there and the two had already started to fight.
I kicked the Staffie as hard as I could and surprisingly my aim was dead right and the dog bounced off snarling and as I picked George up it spun back to have another go.
I stamped on it again.

Like I said we were lucky.
Lucky that the staffie was a young and underweight specimen,
Lucky that I can move with the speed of a jungle cat when I need to,
Lucky that my boot connected
and lucky that one of the scruffy owners grabbed him and carried him away after the fact
If all of the dogs had been there Blind William or the slight Mary may have been attacked on their leads.
I found it strange that neither man complained that I had kicked their dog and even though the girl mumbled a "sorry mate" I let rip with a mouthful of expletives  a docker would be proud of.
I was still swearing as the group shambled away onto the main road.
"You Were lucky" I bellowed like Sylvester Stallone playing Rocky Balboa "If the bulldog was out she would have fucking killed it!"
Charming!

George Attacked

I've just been messaging my sister ( who is a dog owner and lover) about George being attacked by a staffie earlier today! Now don't worry he's fine ( thanks to my hard brown shoes which kicked the shit out of the attacking dog let loose by three trailer trash characters.)
But it was a rather upsetting experience
I'll tell you the story tomorrow , suffice to say as a treat I bought the old guy half a cooked chicken from Sainsbury's for his tea
I hate, HATE, HATE bad dog owners!

Three Billboards ( Spoilers)

I first became a fan of Frances McDormand after I saw her play wily old police officer Marge Gundersun in the Cohen Brothers' black comedy Fargo back in the mid nineties. In that movie and in most thereafter she has dominated the screen with a quiet authority so it won't surprise anyone that  she brings that raw acting power to her performance of a grieving mother in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri. 
She is simply wonderful.
Like Fargo, Billboards is a dark and at times violent black comedy that walks the fine line from potentially being rather a bleak movie to being a surprising uplifting and hopeful one. I say surprising  because it is essentially the study how the rape and murder of a teenage girl affects a small family and most importantly her feisty battling mother who cannot cope with the fact that her daughter's killers have escaped detection by the local small town police department.
McDormand plays Mildred, the boiler suited, bandana wearing mother who takes it on herself to rent three local billboards in order to highlight what she thinks is the lack of action of the local Sheriff Willoughby (Woody Harrelson). 
This drastic action has a knock on effect within the Small Town of Ebbing, as with tensions running high because of the open secret that the much loved Willoughby is in fact dying, Mildred has to fight the unstable and stupid deputy Dixon ( the excellent Sam Rockwell) an un supportive ex husband and the sympathetic yet powerless Willoughby in her crusade to find the truth.

The film plays fast and loose with reality at times, in a very similar way that old fashioned Westerns do to modern eyes and I think this is a conscious decision by Brit director/ writer Martin McDonough  who obviously has something to say about blue collar America where institutionalised racism, homophobia and small thinking can often rule the day.
Wisely McDonough chooses the main thrust of the story to be that of grief and redemption rather than focus on a social commentary and this is where McDormand comes into her own .
Reminding me of that wartime poster of the all-American factory worker , she takes on all comers with a potty mouth and the fierceness of a cornered lioness . Rarely smiling but possessing a wry humour McDormand's character wavers between being sympathetic one minute and truly monstrous the next and it is this ambiguity that makes the film so interesting.
9/10

Writing A Film Review

The Prof is in Ireland today
I went to the cinema to see Three Billboards Outside Ebbing , Missouri as a treat
It was a cracking movie
I'll post the review tomorrow as I'm having a little difficulty dealing with my new laptop
However I shall leave you with a photo of me and my co-pilot reviewing my review with the computer on my knee..
She likes to see what I see

Baked Beans on A Friday

when I was little...say around ten years old Friday afternoons were happy times.
It was when my sister and I went to my grandparents' house after school. The house was full.
With people talking , eating homemade cake and drinking tea as we, my mother and her friend and my elder sister and her children crowded in to a bungalow the size of a large chicken coop.
Eventually only my twin sister and sister were left and tea was served on a coffee table in front of the tv. Baked beans on cheap white bread toast and tinned fruit cocktail and evaporated milk.
Bloody lovely.
It was a happy house, and we children, who were used to a rather less favourable environment at home , sucked up the pleasure and warmth in it all, like hens do in an early evening sun.

On tv every Friday was an American soap opera...I was reminded of it this morning after I had read of the death of Dorothy Malone ...She of the shiny blonde hair and breathless voice

Funny What You Remember

The Pebble That Does What it's told !

It's sleeting today. Cold wet sleet in biting wind.

I cleaned the church early and slipped down the steps of the boiler house putting the Christmas tree away. 

The Tree cushioned my fall so no real harm done.

I made sure I sprayed every radiator in the church with polish before I left so as they switched on the smell of clean shiny wood filled the space.

I learnt that trick from a friend of mine who was a cleaning lady.

Mind you she got caught by one of her clients on his CCTV one day after spraying fabreeze around his flat and doing little else!

I've walked the dogs, fed the Prof his breakfast in bed, lit the fire, sorted the field animals and cleaned the Church.
All before 9 am

Now it's coffee time with some music.

The Prof's brother and sister law bought us a strange little object at Christmas.

It looked like a large pebble connected to an electric plug.
It's a" google plus" I was informed " you ask it things"

Well initially the google plus was a real let down as it got all flustered with some of my questioning
The " Hey Google will Carol Snog Daryl in season 8 of The Walking Dead?" question fell on deaf ears and it took an age before the bloody thing found me a recipe for low fat macaroni cheese  but after a bit of practice now it's sort of come into its own as just now, after I sit down with my bucket of coffee I call over ( still somewhat self consciously I must say)
" Hey Google play A selection of movie soundtracks by John Williams!" 
And after a polite acknowledgement by a posh sounding lady the kitchen is suddenly filled with stirring music!
What strange magic!
Apparently you can get different voices to answer your hey google questions?
I wonder if they do Russell Crowe?
Ohhh errrr

Hey

Ok....it's a lazy post but a lovely song

Result