Taskmaster

 

Another day another tv programme review.

That’s how simple my life is today.

After all the detailed and oh so useful psychological reflection session at work, coming home on Wednesday  to an empty house is still hard after a challenging shift.

What we all need at these times is someone else to run a bath for you and to kiss the top of your head as you soak away the days stress in bubbles you’d never sort out for yourself 

Hey ho..I’m not complaining …I’m just saying

Anyhow,

Second best is a large gin and some nice tv.

The day before yesterday it was the great Royal documentary

Last night Taskmaster was back like an old friend returning home.

Silly, funny, entertaining , and clever, this quiz show has been aired since 2015

I love Alex Horne and adore Welsh born Greg Davies so the addition of my favourite Victoria Coren Mitchell is a real bonus in this series 12..and so is the rather sexy Gus Khan with his smile and lovely beard 

Have a look at it if u can it’s on channel 4 Thursday nights 9 pm

I’m back at work all day today and tomorrow ….thank you to Trendy Carol again for taking the girls 

I couldn’t cope without her and her hubby’s help.

I will leave you with a pic of a slumbering Dorothy with Sunflowers last night

Welcome to my world x

The Duke

 I got home last night and took a rain check at the what’s app video meet I had planned with a friend.

I was all out of talk

Instead I poured myself a very large gin and sat down to watch the Prince Philip-The Royal Family Remembers 

The documentary was filled with personal memories spoken to camera by all of Philip’s Children, their spouses and his adult grandchildren. The only absentees were Kate and Meghan and of course the Queen and the only addition was one of Prince Philip’s personal secretaries who quite movingly gave the audience a stiff upper lip viewing of her boss’ private offices.

I liked the documentary 

It humanised the Duke enormously and it reeked of respect and affection for a man who didn’t suffer fools   but who had a sharp brain and a talent for leadership.

The Royals collectively came out very well too.

I was especially impressed by Anne ( wearing double denim without a care) and her children Peter and Zara who all spoke eloquently and movingly about their memories. 

The best anecdote surly came from Prince William who shared the story of when his grandfather stopped a  young man hiking on one of his own Duke of Edinburgh award challenges and asked him how he was getting on. The young hiker, irritated  with the interruption shot out with a “ Fuck off Grandad” comment which apparently amused the Duke no end.

I slept long and heavy last night and got up late this morning

Outside the back door my sister had left a bucket of sunflowers she had grown on her allotment

And I cut and arranged them in a glass vase.

They have lifted the living room with their sunny faces

Goats on the Orme

The patient I was fond of died peacefully today with his family round him.

I'm sitting quietly having a late lunch, alone

It's sunny and I can see the goats on the Orme

Four of them standing very still against a deep blue sky

 

GGBO

 The Great British Bake Off contestants were introduced today and it’s a more ethnically diverse bunch than we’ve  ever seen before…. 2 Greeks, a geek, an Asian, a hairy Italian, a humourless German, one posh old lady who cries ,a  bright Liverpudlian, a Greta Thumburg lookalike, a gay Jamaican…….etc …..they are all here…. All we needed was a Jewish New York lesbian in a wheelchair and every box would have been ticked.

It feels that they’ve tried a tad too hard…..

The programme still works after eleven years because it’s about nice people doing nicely talented things in a nice way 

Holiday End

 The lecture was less about understanding violence and more about understanding and diagnosing mental illness which I thought it would be. 

It was interesting nevertheless.

I’m back in work tomorrow and I’m a little ambivalent about it. 

I’ve so enjoyed my holiday and know the patient I am close to is still with us. In some ways I was hoping he had passed away before I got back on the floor.

It will be fine, but I still has that feeling, I did have as a child the day I started secondary school after the summer holidays.

This morning, as I was messaging my friend in Korea I was cooking udon noodles with chicken for my lunch tomorrow. To give the meal a Korean twist, I use gochujang paste with soy, garlic and honey. 

I bought the gochijang in Waitrose and a jar lasts ages

I’ve only just realised that Mr Poznań caught me licking my gravy covered fingers this morning after I had put Mary’s dinner bowl onto the front lawn. 

He had distracted me with talk about the buddliea  

This isn’t such a big deal except I’m sure he thought that the bowl was full to the brim of dog food.

I must have to admit now , that it wasn’t even though It looked as though it was….a few times a week I treat Mary to some tinned stewing steak. In it I disguise a big dollop of cod liver oil which seems to be helping her coat condition. 

But Mr Poznań wasnt privy to this information and now must think, I’m an animal 

He was right about the buddliea though. My three bush/trees have lost their blooms and now look dull and brown and rather sad. The clouds of butterflies that enveloped them only a week ago have all but gone 

“Prepare yourself for autumn” Mr Poznań lamented 

Summer holidays have finished I thought 

The Walking Dead 11x05

I’ve caught up with The Walking Dead on Disney+ 

( Is it me but am I the only one who thinks it a bit odd that a violent zombie apocalypse tv show is airing on Disney?)

The last season has been somewhat variable but this episode 5 was a cracker! 

I love this little gentle scene between Rosita (Christian Serratos) and Judith (The delightfully talented Cailey Fleming )

Quite lovely

Understanding Violence

 

Zoom lectures have become some of the major benefit side effects, of the pandemic

I have enrolled in several film study lectures varying from such topics as new film noir, wind mise en scéne and horror and have dipped my toes into Opera appreciation and Welsh Folklore.

Tomorrow at noon there is a free zoom lecture run by the Chester Storyhouse in conjunction with Chester University. It’s topic should be interesting as it is a discussion by a forensic psychologist on the subject of violence .

https://www.storyhouse.com/event/dangerous-minds

I’ve left the link if anyone wants to give the free lecture a try.

When I was a psychiatric nurse I was never really exposed to many violent encounters. 

Sure there would be the odd moment when a sectioned patient may have needed restraining, or medication was needed to be given. But the training was good and staffing was adequate that these sort of situations were rare.

As a general nurse however, I have been involved in many more graphic and upsetting physical altercations , not everyone with patients and I must say, being of a bigger build has proved useful at these times.

I have punched only one person in my life. And that punch was meant to hurt and hurt badly, as the recipient had pulled a knife out in a drunken rage.. 

And I have also slapped someone who said something so hurtful I reacted like a pained child and lashed out.

The punch I don’t regret

The slap I did.

That is a synopsis of my brief journey into instigating violence.

I will listen to the lecture by Professor Taj Nathan with interest.

He’s somewhat easy of the eye too 

I wonder if I will see any of you there?  

The Intern

The Intern is a sweet unassuming film

I knew it would be. 

Essentially it’s an old fashioned romcom with the friendship between 70 year old return to work Ben ( Robert DeNero) and his thirty something Internet sales company wunderkind boss Jules ( Anne Hathaway)

as the rom in the con 

The narrative meanders gently from Ben’s quiet and slightly desperate  existence without the stimulation of work to his and Jules’ acceptance that success is a balance between home and work and love life ( but only if you are successful at all three which was a tad disappointing, but it was refreshing enough to have a movie that celebrates the talents and experiences of the older population even though DeNero and Rene Russo ( who pops up briefly as a sexy something 60 year old company masseuse )scrub up nicely.

Hathaway is on her best charming form and is quite lovely in the lead role with DeNero gallantly underplaying his role nicely in support.

Light, frothy and at times kind of  moving…it was a good choice of film, on a quiet Sunday afternoon