Blitz
Blitz is Steve McQueen’s homage to wartime Black culture and he has produced a meticulously recreated WW2 nightmare of a simple Lassie Come Home ish boytime adventure piece, crossed with something that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Dickens novel .
Saoirse Ronan is Rita, a warm hearted mum of mixed race eight year old George ( a plucky Eliot Heffernan) They live in London’s east end with grandad ( Paul Weller) until George is evacuated .
and it is here that the boy’s own adventure story starts when the boy jumps his train and in an effort to find his way home, fights his way through one of the worst blitz raids of the war.
Even in let’s-pull-together wartime Britain McQueen shows London as a racist melting pot, where white officialdom and villainy conspire to prevent George’s reunion with his family. And where the main hero is kindly Nigerian Ife ( Benjamin Clementine ) who suddenly becomes George’s surrogate air warden father figure. He has the heart of McQueen’s drama, and shines in one pivotal scene when , in front of the admiring George he sorts out a nasty racist incident in a crowded shelter with incredible emotional dignity.
In a matter of a day or two George is kidnapped by a looting gang headed by a grotesque looking Kathy Burke. Is trapped, 1970s disaster film style , in a flooded underground station and is nearly killed in the flaming dockyards near Tower Bridge as his poor mother waits at home with bated breath .
The amazing Kathy Burke
Like I said it a simple tale, told well. I loved it
Life on a Winter Wednesday
Lazy day today.
Long hot shower where I scrubbed everything that needed scrubbing.
Clean clothes
Clinique Happy
Coffee and paperwork in the Storyhouse library
Followed by a film The Blitz
The library has some lovely original features mashed together with modern design
The ceiling above my head
What fun
lolForgive the coffee stains , as usual I had a major dribbling moment down my front .
I’ve just got time to update you all,on Bun & Weaver
Weaver, is a funny little soul. She’s quiet and aloof and just keeps herself away from me and the dogs and life it would seem. Perhaps she’s just self contained ,
Perhaps not.
She’s happiest with her sister and sits for long periods watching the ponies in their field.
Bun however has suddenly become affectionate and loving, cuddling up,to me on the couch when Mary is absent and falling asleep on my hip when im in bed.
EOL
The hospice acronym for someone who is actively dying is EOL
END OF LIFE
It signifies that the full force of hospice care is in progress
I’m listening with interest, discussions around the Assisted Dying Bill which will debated in Parliament on the 29th of November.
The bill, in its many forms is presently working in parts of Australia, Canada, The Netherlands and Spain and the British legislation will be little different as the patient involved has to be actively dying within a sixth month period, a time limit which may cause disagreement between the two doctor referees.
In my view a number of patients who want the chance of self determination will essentially not be given it. The MND patients, the MS and the head and Spinally injured.
Many of these conditions are not life limiting of six months and therefore will not qualify.
I remember my brother who had motor neurone disease reviewing his chances of dignitas
It was all too much for him
It overfaces many.
Good EOL and palliative care should be a priority
Everyone should have access to hospice care
And hospices should be financially supported to take all appropriate referral's
Assisted dying , if it arrives will help a few
But it will fail many others who want it but don’t qualify its strict criteria.
I am saddened by their losses.
Home Front
I know I had a great uncle who served in Burma during the war.
I forget his name , but he was a good looking man with a killer moustache.
I think he survived the war,
My father was an airman in the RAF and navigated Lancasters.
I’m still not sure if his war record
My family , from their own oral histories, fought the war more on the home front.
My Grandmother , mother and Uncle Jim were bombed out of their house on Louisa Street, Everton in the Blitz and were sheltering under an upturned sofa as the windows blew in and an unexplored flying torpedo lodged itself under the kitchen floor.
During the May Blitz my great grandfather was killed when their family shelter took a direct hit. A shelter my Grandmother and Mother was running for before the bombs proceeded them.
During all of this horrendous time my Grandfather was a fireman in the Auxiliary Fire Service, who spent days and days fighting the fires in dockland Liverpool.
You can understand just why my family moved to the quiet and prejudice of North Wales.
Tonight I was late for work. Bun was up the bookcase waving paws at Roger who was fed up with the excitement. Suddenly a black shape the side on an envelope fell from the shelves onto the floor
It was my Grandfather’s Fire Badge which he saved from his wartime uniform nearly 80 years ago. It is the only physical memory I have of my Grandfather
Funny how it turned up today,
Christmas
I have from the 21st of December to the 28th off.
This is unheard of to have all of Christmas off work.
A modern day miracle.
When I was a ward manager invariably I would do the late shift on Christmas Day
But then extra shifts would creep in, holes would appear to be plugged and before you knew it, I might have Boxing Day off after working Christmas Eve and Christmas night .
Last year I did a long day Christmas Day and said rather vociferously that that was it, no more Christmas Shifts for me.
7 days over Christmas how wonderful
My octernagerian counsellor , in her sing song voice asked me what I had planned.
My supervisor promptly gave her opinion that I enjoy it with people,
So far I am spending Christmas Day with family
So the first time in years I have a dilemma
What am I going to do the rest of the time?
You sound like a fucked up 63 year old gay Bridget Jones!
Was one of my friend’s responses when I asked him,
So I brought this helpful comment up at my counselling session
Who is Bridget Jones? she asked
A Neurotic weight obsessed unlucky in love 30 something I explained
My counsellor kept quiet.
So what am I going to do over Christmas ? When the love lorned swap jumpers with holes in them?
Answers on a postcard please
Burrito
It’s a mess
I’m sat contemplating what to do about it,
Hiding behind my blog….at the kitchen table
Since the twins arrived the cottage resembles a war zone
I saw my friend Polly for brunch
She was a doctor at the hospice and we see each other every few months for a chat and a catch up
She is bright and intelligent and warm.
We ate a dry brunch fry up at Bryn Williams whch needed some sauce to it, like it always does but still I said nothing to the waiter.
It suddenly felt like Christmas , after she had gone and I walked the dogs down Colwyn Bay Promenade like people do so much on Boxing Day.
Diverting from the talk in hand I’ve been stalking one of the lisping choir members , he’s a delightfully animated character ( see 1.58 into the video)
I’ve been wasting time watching his hips roll, he looks a Happy soul
Ok the washing up needs doing!!!!
My clay family frown at my frivolity and they glare
I stop stalking Geraldo and contemplate the cat nip stuffed toy my sister ann gave the twins only yesterday.
It lies in at least 14 tufts on the kitchen floor.
Geraldo rolls his hands and sings lustily about a Spanish donkey in my mind
But alas, the cottage needs a clean
Hey ho
Oil over water
I’m a sucker for a kind word.
They go a long way with people and oil the choppy waters of everyday life.
They cost nothing either.
I had a discussion about examining the motivations in people with my supervisor yesterday.
And the conclusion stood
Some people can be nasty arseholes at times
Period
Others can have motivations so hidden and ingrained that a wizard couldn’t unearth them
People are complex and chaotic
Seldom are we linear
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