Kid, You’re On Your Own!

 I’ve got that virus that comes back with a vengeance . Several of the older members of the hospice have it and this morning we were comparing health notes like old ladies do at a bus stop.

If you are a singleton and poorly, you only have your dogs to lick your feet better. Ok Diane the  support worker I worked with last night, who has a heart the size of a fridge, gave me her curry supper to eat as well as furnishing me with copious amounts of sweet tea, but generally kid , you’re on your own.

Hence the lucozade. 

Now when I was a child, Lucozade was classed as a medical drink. A gloriously golden sweet fizzy drink wrapped up in yellow selophane, that could only be bought at the chemists. 

It was expensive

It was wonderful and it was a treat.

Your mother really loved you when she bought you a bottle, and you had to drink it quick sticks before anyone well got there nasty little mits on it.

It was the ambrosia of the 1970s

So I bought myself a bottle today

From Tescos

There was a whole section filled with lucozade

Lucozade light, lucozade sport, lucozade high energy

All in common plastic bottles

No cellophane

No tradition.

I bought a bottle of lucozade original

And drank it in the car park

I could have wept

Ok I got a sense of the real taste of childhood

But the drink was just a fizz

A shadow of its former self

And no panacea to a snotty, painful head.

 

Videos

 The lisping choir was quiet for this piece and I remember how gentle the Metropolitan Orchestra was.

Tik tok made the following video without me hardly doing anything , how scary is AI .

I will leave it to your imagination why the third video popped up

I’ve seen clients today then went to bed.just getting up for a night shift

Falling Asleep at the cinema

 

The Room Next Door is my kind of film . 

Typically lush and heavy with its colours andwith a heavy orchestral score this quiet melodrama about euthanasia on the surface is more Almodòvar than Almodòvar .

I went to Chester Picturehouse to see it. With its plush seats and warm interiors, I sat my coffee down on my little armrest, and took,in the first arty meeting between old friends Tilda Swindon and Julianne Moore  before falling fast asleep with , what I was presuming to be a snore that could out do the average warthog

.

I knew nothing except Tilda was found dead in full battle makeup and Moore was being all soft spoken to the police. 

The credits- the end.

I was mortified 

Not for me but for the half dozen other patrons who would have had to coped with an hours plus of my night noises. 

At the end of the credits. I apologised to a couple two seats behind, who gallantly waved me away with a smile

Perhaps it was the seats, perhaps I need that blood test to check just why I’m so tired, or perhaps  my psychi just doesn’t want to deal with another story of preparation for death and a story of the dying

Who knows.? 

Answers on a postcard please

Emilia Pèrez

 I need a deep breath to explain this one.

Ok, here goes….French director Jacques Audiard has directed a Spanish language Almodóvar-esque musical about the violent drug cartel in urban Mexico.

Violent killer drug Barron Manitas has to disappear, so stages his own death and pays a bright lawyer Rita ( Zoe Saldana ) to spirit his trashy wife Jessi (Selina Gomez) and his children to Switzerland. In the meantime Manitas is transformed into Emilia at a Swiss clinic and after years transforming re enters Mexican society as Manitas sister ( The extraordinary Karla Sofia Gascon)

Are you still with me?  

Now Rita reenters the story by bringing the clueless  Jessi and her boys to live with their aunt back in Mexico and the story complicates even more by Jessie’s new relationship ,Rita and Emilia’s new found work locating the remains of thousands of drug crime victims in Mexico and the tender new relationship between Emilia and poor housewife Epifania ( Adriana Paz)

Bloody Hell

gascon as Emilia

Audiard ( a non Spanish speaker ) adds to the melodrama by some wonderfully bonkers musical set pieces and trans actress Gascon totally steals the show as the throaty, suddenly big hearted and transformed Emilia, Statuesque, Broad shouldered, sexy and at times an incredibly vulnerable former killer she dominates every scene

It’s bonkers , but I loved it 

Osmosis

 I’ve not pushed it

I’ve let it happen organically 

But Bun and Mary

Finally have broken down their natural barbers tonight 

I’m off to bed and snapped this photo of a friendship which both want but which both have sabotaged 

Repeatedly.

  

Big Breaths

 A couple of my colleagues at work feel unwell today. Everyone’s coming down with colds. 

I’ve lost my voice.

It not stopped us laughing

We sounded like a room full of dirty phone callers when we were checking drugs.

Another fit of coughing giggles.

When I was a Samaritan up to 40% of my calls were either abusive or sexual

I remember one guy who yelled out a quick and despirate 

“ Before you disappear I’m not a pervert I have COPD “ 

Planets

 

With my bottle of water, box of strepsils, and pockets full of tissues I braved the journey to Liverpool again to see The Planet Suite.

It didn’t disappoint.

Jupiter the Bringer of Jollity, was so powerful that I noticed a couple of people dabbing their eyes.

I was a tad disappointed that great hunk of spunk Domingo Hindoyan was not conducting this time (Andrew Manze having the honour) but it was the music that counts and last night was a real treat.

I’m in bed now after walking the dogs and feeding the twins.

And feel rotten 

I shall refrain from telling any jokes about my Uranus being a Magician 

Lemsips and rest are the mantra for the day

Bun ( I think ) is sitting on the clothes horse watching the lane

Saturday

 I’m full of cold, a product of Mersey rail on Wednesday 

Last night I went to The Crown for a meal with my family which was lovely but I slept badly so after dog walks this morning we’ve all gone back to bed . 

The animals are playing cowboys and Indians with the Welsh playing the settlers  laying safe between my legs and the twins playing the marauding injuns.

I’m just drinking coffee from my American 1940s diner mug and will fall again to sleep soon

The Philharmonic later