Is this thing on?

 Yesterday, Friday, was a cold, dull day with rain and mist.  On days like this I like to make sure I go out because being alone in the house all day is very long and feel as if I am just waiting for the day to be over and tea time and evening to come round again.  It feels for me like a day of nothing.  So I try to go out.  On Wednesday I went to the first proper WI meeting when we had a speaker (the other meetings I had been to so far had been special occasions/Christmas and no speaker).   The speaker was a criminal lawyer and he talked us through a murder trial he had been involved in.  He went on too long and seemed a bit pleased with himself.  However, that is by the by.  The meeting had an hour of official business too which I found tedious and wanted to leave.  I met and talked to some people, the plus side of it.  I am glad it is only once a month because of well, what I described. 

Back to yesterday, the film, Is This Thing On?,  came out yesterday and was showing at a suitable time for me so after checking the trains were running ok I booked my ticket.  I had seen the trailer a few times so knew I wanted to see it at some point.  The show times next week are all later anyway so yesterday had to be the day. 

This is a story inspired by John Bishop's relationship with his wife when the relationship had broken down and they were filing for divorce.   John Bishop knows Will Arnett (he will star in the film)  and they had talked about the divorce story casually years ago and then it turned into this film. 

A little background,  John Bishop is a  comedian amongst other things.  I first and only came across him in a series called John Bishop In Conversation .. where Bishop would interview well known people, celebrities, politicians, often very unexpected people to appear in such a situation.   I liked the way Bishop conducted the interviews, slow and personal and yet one never felt he was being intrusive, or at least I didn't.   I don't know him as a stand-up comedian.   He is Liverpudlian with a strong accent, supports Liverpool F.C. and became a comedian by chance as the film will tell us.

The film is billed by Odeon as a comedy but is actually not a comedy.  Nor is it a film about stand-up comedians.  It is about relationships and divorce and  the effect on all those involved, the couple, the children, if there are any, in-laws and friends.   Will Arnett plays Alex Novak, the John Bishop based character, and Laura Dern, his wife.  The stand-up comedian bit comes in when Novak ends up doing an open-mic spot in a bar and finds it therapeutic in off-loading in a comedic way what is happening to his marriage.  This is what happened to Bishop in real life.  One night Novak's wife turns up unexpectedly with a date not knowing Novak was doing open-mic.  This also happened to Bishop.  

Arnett and Dern worked closely with John Bishop, and they get it right in my opinion, and in Bishop's too as he has been interviewed a lot about it and says so.    I enjoyed the film and I recommend it.  It will no doubt be streaming soon. 

Today the sun is shining and the sky is blue.  I have a day to myself and I need to catch up a bit with relaxing and chilling out. Saturdays at home are ok, it goes back to working, weekends are still weekends.  

I hope you enjoy reading this rather muddled post.  

Comments going into spam again

 Do you remember when comments and spam had to be checked on a daily basis?  Well I think it is happening again and perfectly legitimate comments are going into spam and need to be released. I found today that some comments here that had been published and answered by me had been removed and put into spam.  I set them free again.

Just saying in case anybody is missing their comments on blogs (I believe there are some of you).  They are probably caught up in your favourite bloggers Spam file.   Get him/her to release them. 

I thought this problem had disappeared but it seems to be back. 

Film AI and Film

 Yesterday I went to see Mercy, a sci-fi movie set a little bit in the future where the courts are run by an AI judge and the accused is guilty until he can prove himself innocent and he has an hour to go through the evidence against him and discount it.  Via the AI judge all the evidence is available at her command via computer this includes film footage and connection with a cop who has an airborne method of transport and can go further with investigation on command of the accused. If he fails to prove his innocence in the hour then he is going to be eliminated, exterminated.   I was undecided about going to see it because it is not a genre that is my kind of movie.  However, I liked it a lot and it was full of twists and turns and edge-of-seat stuff.  Rebecca Ferguson was the AI judge and Chris Pratt the accused.  

Talking of AI, I went back in time last night and watched Bloomberg TV channel and the closing bell from Wall Street.  When I was broking I watched this every night.  I liked to be ahead of the game when London opened in the morning.   As it happened Microsoft, Sandisk and Apple all had annual results yesterday and there is this big thrusting race at who tops AI.  Apple figures were better than last time, Sandisk which I had totally forgotten about as I no longer buy memory sticks or memory cards for cameras is way out in front.  Microsoft gave the worst set of results and not in front of the AI race at the moment. 

I don't know what took me to Bloomberg last night, maybe I was getting a bit fed up with Everwood which I have been watching, family drama in Colorado, and turned over.  Anyway I also got to see the Bloomberg interview with the New York mayor Mamdani, I hope I have spelt that right, who managed to smoothly answer all the questions by sidestepping them or blaming somebody else.  Like the 10 deaths in the cold in New York were definitely not his fault, all calls were directed to 911 he said so was he blaming 911?, not sure,  and everything else was his predecessors fault.   He never directly answered any questions on any subject.  He reminded me of Obama with the persuasive, smooth-talking but without the lumpy jerks in delivery so he got a plausible 9 for delivery from me, content was sick and he got a 0. Good luck New Yorkers with your commie mayor.  I thought the interviewer was remarkably controlled and verging on AI.  Mandami got an easy ride. 

I may go and see the Bradley Cooper's Is This Thing On today.  It looks like it is going to be funny.  John Bishop is the connection as it is inspired by his life.  

A day or two later

When I started blogging again in October I said I wasn't sure if it was a good idea or not.

Three months down the line and I find myself thinking about this a lot. 

I don't want to continue feeling trapped into safe, personal stories. 

I don't like the labels of left and right attached to facts as they present themselves from government to us the people. It is not a solution to dismiss fact and shoot the messenger.   

I see the country as failing, the future as bleak for Britain, for employers, for investors, for small businesses, for commerce, for all in the hospitality and retail business, a bleak future for pensioners, current and future,  relying on state pensions. It is bleak for all of us.  We won't die out because we carry on reproducing but we will live in a poorer state, a poorer economy in a poorer over-crowded country strapped by rules and regulations the likes of which we have never lived in before. 

But one cannot say any of this without being labelled politically.  They are facts that present themselves.  They shouldn't be dismissed, written off, shoot the messenger, she's politically this or politically that.  It is honesty of the facts,  not left or right.   It is a Britain with lies about heat pumps and Drax and migrants and welfare and a Britain of no more choice, a Britain of an NHS where people say they cannot see a doctor because he is not available face to face, it is two Norfolk cops shooting a man dead after a road traffic accident with each firing a bullet that never gets talked about because Trump isn't involved and Brexit can't be blamed.  It is Britain.  It is not being able to speak without fear of being locked up, reported and labelled.  And it is never  a label that is found that says caring about Britain, caring about people, caring about investment, caring about jobs, caring about the future, it is a label that says shut up. 

It is Blair's Britain and his legacy in which we live.  The Human Rights Act 1998 which dictates to us and ties us up in knots from hook handed clerics to migrants to deportations to Bulgarian gangs to Albanian gangs and to  Richard Hermer to let it live on and on and on. It is what Brexit was supposed to get us out of but failed.   The foundation for rules and regulations that spread fear to speak out that allow bombers in Manchester, knifers in Southport, rapists in Rotherham all of which were doing what they did because somebody somewhere was frightened of being called a racist for calling them out so nothing was done until it was too late to stop them. 

I have seen H is for Hawk.  A nice story with Claire Foy and Brendan Gleeson very good.   Will I continue to find safe subjects?  No I don't think I can. 

The Valuer

 Yesterday morning I dusted and hoovered the remaining rooms that had not been touched and did a blitz on the kitchen.  As I live alone I tend not to put things away like I should do so the worktop accumulates bottles and packets of things that should be away out of sight.  So that was all done and what a joy it feels to me now.  

I then removed the cats' bowls and plates into the utility room pretending that they are fed in there which seemed more reasonable I thought.  The cats didn't like what was going on and started meowing for their food where it should be staring at the bare floor tiles.  I then upset them even more by bleaching the floor twice.  So there was upset on the cat front all day. 

I cleared everything off the table in the breakfast room and that was also a joy to see the surface.  I had to scrub it clean because the cats had been laying on it between objects and when I moved it all around I found plenty of evidence of cat hairs and dust.  So that all went.  (I haven't eaten at the breakfast room table for months). 

I then moved the furniture to the sides in the living room so that the full length of the room and the centre beam and fireplace with woodburner were on full glory display.  

The house actually felt livable again.  As you might guess I do very little housework under normal circumstances.  

Upstairs was all finished and dusted and hoovered a few days before and I made one last check over before he came and there was still a cobweb which he walked straight into in the first room.  I apologised for this but clearly it didn't really matter and I am sure there were many more cobwebs he saw if he looked up.  I go around my house without my glasses on so rarely see what other people see in distant corners. (I am short-sighted). 

So the valuer came.  We sat at the clean breakfast room table and he made some preliminary notes on my intentions which I explained were a bit blurred at the moment.  He said this was normal so I relaxed a bit.  He was actually a very nice man and we chatted for quite a while.  He made some notes and then we went round the house and he measured all the rooms quickly with a laser measure which made it all very quick. He then went outside to do the outdoors bit and I stood at the door at it was raining.   We then sat down again at the breakfast room table and continued chatting.  We discussed the area and the quietness.  We discussed some figures and he asked what I had in mind and I was very realistic and not silly about what I would expect.  He praised me for this objective approach and my on-going maintenance in all respects.  He liked the house and said he would happily live there which was encouraging. 

He will prepare the valuation report over the weekend because he said I could have it on Monday which I thought was quick.  

I will take it one step at a time and hope for a signal from above about what the right thing is for me and when.  I am sure as with all things that moment will come.  

My fitness routines

Having asked Joy on Diary of a (Retired) Teacher blog what her fitness routines are I thought I would tell you what mine are. 

Each day I do 15 minutes of chair exercises. I follow Tom on his You Tube channel ElderFit.  I started doing the exercises in September when I booked my holiday for later this year.  This was the first time I had booked a holiday so far in advance and it fixed my mind into thinking that if I am to go I need to increase my fitness for walking and also I wanted exercises that I could do on the journey there as the flight is 6 hours.  Although it is not a walking holiday each town and city we stop at involves a walking tour of anything from one hour to three hours.  Also intermediate stops normally involve some walking to museums etc.   

I do the chair exercises outside if possible as I feel more benefit if I am out in the fresh air.  I have only had a couple of days where I have had to do them indoors and a few times on a chair in the garage although for the first month I did them all indoors.    The exercises are easy to remember but I prefer to have Tom on his channel on my phone talking them through for the discipline of timings if nothing else.  I often do the exercises whilst waiting for the train and have practiced doing some on the train imagining that I am on the aeroplane!  Sounds like madness has set in in old age doesn't it!

After doing the exercises for two months I began to feel benefits so decided it was time to move forward and see more exercises and learn more about core muscles so I googled various things like 'how to get down to the floor and up again without props' and found lots on this and I now do the getting up and down from the floor exercise each day.  I then decided that I wanted to sit on my heels again like I did when I was young which led me to the sitting on heels videos.  I do this each day and see very small improvements to my quads although I sometimes wonder if I will ever get down to my heels again.  I do not watch any specific video for the heels exercise as I learned straightaway that it is a question of improving quads and doing squats in order to improve the quad muscles in the upper leg. 

(One thing I have learned is that core body and leg muscles are not improved by walking alone and that western doctors advice to walk is not necessarily going to help you enough.  The 10,000 steps business is a random number and not needed.  My average step total according to my phone is about 4000 when I go out for the day.  This is fine).  

Back to where I was in the paragraph before. This led me to Japanese exercises and the elderly which gave me bicycling in the air, legs against the wall and squats (yet more squats) and walking backwards to improve balance and brain power.  I now do these each day.  (The Japanese elderly do not walk far but they do the exercises).

I do not have any set times when I do the exercises and the 15 minutes with Tom in the chair exercises I often do while I am waiting for my tea to cook in the early evening dusk outside. 

The floor exercises I sometimes do while watching television in the evening and the legs against the wall (laying on floor with legs up the wall in front of you) I do before bed as this is supposed to be good to aid sleeping. 

So that is a boring run down of my exercises.  I also have insurance for the holiday taken out in advance in case I have to cancel.  My holidays are normally spur of the moment and involve not much more than a flight and a hotel and then finding a tour when I arrive.  This time it is all a bit more organised and therefore a bit more expensive hence my fears about cancellation.  The holiday insurance was not easy given my age and questions they ask and if you don't quite fit the normal of being an obedient person to your doctor like me.  It is all easier if you can just tick the boxes as they want you to!

I am out this morning to see my oldest brother and his wife who want me to look at some paperwork with them.  I have had to change my plans for the day but on balance I think it best if I go and see them.  I am still tidying up for the valuer's visit tomorrow and have been going room to room with the hoover and the duster!  More of that this afternoon.   I am also finding somewhere new to have my car MOT'd and serviced  following the abrupt closure of the Citroen dealer in Norwich with no warning or assistance offered.  I am  ringing round and waiting for calls back.  All things to keep me occupied but things I could do without.  

Sorry about such a boring post. 

Things

 Yesterday I was supposed to go to my little Thai lady for deep tissue massage but I received a message from her at 4am (I didn't see it until I woke up) telling me that she would have to cancel as she had pulled a muscle in her back and it was getting worse.  She sent a photo of a massage pillow she was sleeping on which seemed to have some kind of electric current going through it.  Sadly for the Thai lady it is difficult for her to get a massage for herself which is exactly what she needed.  (She texted me last night to say she has arranged a massage for herself  from another Thai lady and hopes to be recovered and able to fit me in on Sunday).   Obviously I completely understood so turned to a lunch date that I thought I was going to miss having unusually landed myself with a diary clash  and emailed my lunch girls to see if they were still meeting.  Fortunately they were so at 12 O Clock I was in the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich on the UEA campus looking round the latest exhibition before meeting the girls for lunch in the restaurant.  

We hadn't seen each other since early December when we had a short mid-morning snack before three of them went off to see the Castle Museum since the changes.  I cried off that because I have yet to feel ready to see what they did to the Castle with all the millions spent.   Many of us who are familiar with the Castle Museum since we were small children and school visits starting when we were around 8 years old are reluctant to go to see what they have done to our beloved Castle.  My sister-in-law refuses to ever go again!   I feel sure that I will visit but in my own time.   The girls said they enjoyed their visit and joined one of the tours but found the guide a bit too over-bearing and not wanting to "let go" of anyone.  

Yesterday we caught up on all news like films and books seen and read.  My friends all go to the cinema like me but we tend to go singly or to different cinemas and we all like it that way.  The general consensus on Hamnet was the same, that we were a little disappointed and could not see what all the hype was about.  Song Sung Blue was the latest we had all seen and we had all enjoyed - Hugh Jackman and the Neil Diamond experience - and my latest was Rental Family which I was able to recommend in spite of only 1 star from The Guardian - always enough to give a film a thumbs up in itself.  Incidentally Rental Family stars Brendan Fraser who reminded me of the "date" guy I went out with for six months last year, both in physical looks and mannerisms.  Quite an amusing quirk for me and made me smile.  It is a lovely part Fraser plays as star of the film and it is a nice feel-good story and all set in Tokyo.

I have arranged to have the house valued and the valuer is coming on Friday so I have to tidy up a bit.  I am a bit in a quandary about what to do but I have decided to set the ball rolling thinking about moving.  The house is too big for me now and too isolated in terms of access to town life and always involving driving.  I have been looking at apartments around and about, both coastal and inland, and it struck me this week in a light bulb moment that I may as well move to an apartment in Norwich where there are plenty available, an overkill of conversions and building having taken place in the last 10 years and I am always going to Norwich, I may as well live there!   But then again .........