Thrilling or Thriller

 Yesterday I went to see a Cantonese film, Night King.  It was well over two hours and yet the hours sped by.  Perhaps it was because I was concentrating on the subtitles.  Anyway it was an enjoyable time.  Set in 2012 it  showed the old nightclub industry of Hong Kong where the girls attended the men to please them and we are looking specifically at a failing club  and a dubious takeover by a rival club.  What seems like the good guy is going to lose his club turns itself around.   

The nightlife of Hong Kong has seen its heyday but it is maybe on the turn again now.  I don't know, have never been, but the idea of the girls and the old bankers and lawyers etc. seemed a bit dated to me but perhaps the new night life today is this with a more modern and younger twist.  

Today I am off to see another film which I have been unable to see all week owing to odd show times by Odeon.  Today there is an isolated lunch time showing of The Secret Agent which I have been waiting and hoping for.   All previous showings have been evenings.  A Brazilian drama set in the 1970s.  Looks to be a winner.

Sometimes films are like buses, you wait for ages for one and 4 come at once.   That's the way it goes.  

101 Crime

 Yesterday I went to see Crime 101.  Life is back to normal.  The schools have gone back. 

I enjoyed it and what a contrast it was to Wuthering Heights the day before.   Action.  Barry Keoghan turned up in it.  It was like a flash back to yesterday with Jacob Elordi and in my mind only 24 hours apart and in my small world like a coming together a million miles apart.    For those who don't know, the connection between the two was Saltburn and the connection there was Emerald Fennell and the connection here was yesterday and two films in my life.  

Chris Hemsworth was the Crime 101 thief man and the detective was Mark Ruffalo.   A heist movie with a heart is how it has been described, yes, that works.   LA backdrop, car chases, Barry Keoghan on a motorbike,  Halle Berry getting what I got in finance work, "the champagne is on ice" and that's where it often stays for women. 

The manager at the Odeon said she thought the film was being overlooked.   It is the escape that Wuthering Heights won't give you. 

Wuthering Heights

 

I went to see Emerald Fennell's "Wuthering Heights".  I am a bit nonplussed about it although I was happy to set the book aside and let it be what it was in Fennell's story, a love story.  Those who know the book well will know that it is really anything but a love story and is full of extremely nasty goings on and pretty nasty characters and revenge.  However, the film stands alone, no problem. 

The great success of the film is Martin Clunes who had a rewritten father role as a drunk and a gambler and he nailed it, perfect. (In the book it is his son Hindley who is the drunk and the gambler but he isn't in the film at all).   If only there could have been as good a Nellie Dean as Martin Clunes was to father. .  Nellie Dean is central to the book being the lying, nasty piece of work, servant to Cathy and narrator of the story to Lockwood.  I can't explain it really but I was vey disappointed in her character in the film and was unable to totally set the book aside with her as she is so central to the story.   She was just totally disappointing.  

I liked Edgar played by Shazad Latif.  He was sensible and unshakeable and like Martin Clunes as father, he brought it all back to earth and credible.   

Will I see it again?  No. 

Travel

 Yesterday afternoon I went one step further with my trip to Azerbaijan and paid the trip balance.  I decided to pay by credit card for the Consumer Credit Act protection offered to credit card payments which are absent from debit card payments and it also gives me the ability to pay it off in instalments to suit me.  I am finding it very hard these days to save money and my savings do not build, slowly or otherwise, as they used to, and they are not building at all now.   

The credit card bank needed my approval for the payment and I got in a muddle doing it all on my phone app so had to ring the credit card company.  How nice, on a Sunday, I got straight through to a young man who told me to simply use two gadgets if I had them so that the approval needed did not cut off the company asking me for payment, if that makes sense.  So he reassured me that I was not going to pay twice which is really why I rang  and I went ahead and started again doing it his way, laptop and phone, and no problem, payment approval on phone and paid via laptop.  

The next step will be the visa application which I need as a tourist and should be easy enough on line I have been told.  At least I do not have to go to London as I did for Russia, with two trips, one to leave passport, give finger prints and then three days later return and collect.  Quite a costly exercise at the time with two rail trips and the cash of approximately £100 in a brown envelope for the Russians as card and cheque payments were not accepted.   

People ask me if I am going on holiday alone.  I am going with a group.   This does not mean that I necessarily meet any of them until I arrive at the destination because unless you spot someone with the tour company label on a piece of luggage at the out-going airport you are not going to meet anybody. A guide from the company always meets the group at the arrival airport.  Sometimes you end up sitting next to someone on the same tour like I did a few years ago when I met Odessa David,  as I called him, on the Ukraine flight and coincidentally sat next to him, and sometimes you see nobody and think you must be the only one going.  Additionally, some people make their own flight arrangements so go out on different flights and just meet up at the airport.  This is what I did myself in Albania four years ago when I went out four days before and met up with the guide and the rest of the group at the airport on the scheduled arrivals day.  I had been given the guide's phone number thank goodness because when I phoned him he said he had not been told someone was flying out on a different flight and would be meeting him at the airport.    Anyway, all was well and I announced I was already in Albania and asked where could I find him.  We met up at a coffee kiosk in Tirana Airport.  

 I am less likely to go on a city break on my own now as I am not so interested in galleries and museums as I used to be.  I know that may sound odd but I think I am totally  galleried-out!   

This is the small group I was with in Moldova.  I am standing third from left.  We look like a motley bunch!  We all got on well and had a great deal of fun and laughter.  In the evenings we split into two or three groups for meals out.  

And this is Natalya our guide for 10 days.  She was lovely and had a great sense of humour and perfect English. 

Next with Grandma

 When I got up this morning I found the boys and girl downstairs making me breakfast.  They decided to go for the porridge option so it was just the saucepan bubbling away on the hob but the breakfast table had been laid and I was to sit and be served.  "You shouldn't eat on your lap Grandma, its slovenly", said the six year old.   "Yes dear, point taken".   The six year old was colouring and the boys were deciding on how they could run a restaurant from my house.  The mind boggles.  Menu planning was already underway.  This Gordon Ramsey documentary is certainly having an impact on them.  I hope they don't go back to school saying fuck to everything but then maybe they do anyway, I find it difficult to keep up with young people and what is acceptable and what isn't.  I did notice that River, he's 8, said fuck when he nearly chopped his finger in two when chopping kindling yesterday but I let it go as I was in a slight panic myself thinking the very same thing at the time. Fortunately it was only a graze of the skin and no blood to speak of. 

The restaurant, I was told,  is to be in my dining room and will only have three tables.  I told them that pop-up restaurants were all the go when I was an art student and they would literally pop-up everywhere.  While the menu planning went ahead, with squid ink pie obviously included after yesterday, I suggested that Inga, that's the 6 year old, (I don't know whether she was conceived in the Outer Hebrides or something, never been told) design some menu cards with her crayons.  I handed her some of the old Christmas cards that had not yet made the recycling bin.  I noticed she started colouring robins rather than writing Menu so I gave her some menu words to play with from the Guardian easy Saturday recipes where you might just have some capers and eels livers and hay in the cupboard.  Actually I saw that we eat very little offal in this country now unlike France and Italy where intestines from the cow and bollocks from the pigs are still popular and hay is gathered to stuff in the cooking then setting fire to the kitchen,well filling it with smoke.   It is little wonder that our health is so bad over here with our deficiencies.  I suggested to the boys that they put a liver and bacon option on the menu along with cabbage and swede for vegetables.  Both pulled faces at me.  Ugh granny!   River, he's 8 and conceived on a punt on the Cam I assume, said that they didn't eat cabbage or swede and had no idea what offal was and Inga piped up she knew because she had heard daddy say "fuck all".  I said that wasn't the same thing and to shoosh about that as it was not foody.   I suggested they Google offal quickly and then find something on You Tube.  In fact Mrs Beeton was going to be much better so thrust that at them.  Finn said he wanted to be like Gordon Ramsey, we don't seem to be able to get away from him, and I said you wouldn't want to be lumbered with a £20M loan on a restaurant that may run out of customers.  Finn said he would make his restaurant smaller and on the ground, not in the sky, 63 floors up.  I said, um, well that might work but really I would rather he became a pilot or a doctor or something.  Why don't we all draw aeroplanes and pretend we're flying in the garden?  Or play doctor and nurses.   These games no longer seem popular and I was ignored and everybody carried on with what they were doing. 

I left them to the menu planning and Finn was drawing the restaurant, Inga designing menus, River was busy with Mrs Beeton looking up offal and vegetables, and Blade (don't ask) was designing staircases.  I handed him my Piranesi book and told him he could keep it.  It is full of fantasy staircases going nowhere.   I used to love it when I first started drawing and I do still enjoy drawing ladders and stairs myself but I am downsizing so giving my art books away and I told them they could select any they wanted before they left.   They wanted to do it there and then so I let them go up the stairs to the book shelves.   "Can we take any of them?"    "Yes" I replied.  Take the bloody lot I thought, it will help everybody when I'm dead.   "Yes darlings!" "Love you!"

When Thelma came round yesterday and we had a morning sherry I didn't tell her why the children were still here, or rather I told her they were here because mum had decided to stay longer in London.  I know Thelma was only here to find a bit of gossip for the neighbours, I normally only see her once a year.  

I spoke to daughter yesterday and she said she would be back and it was all a bit silly really but she needed a break.  I left it at that and said "of course darling, nothing more will be said about it, just come back when you are ready", seething underneath and wondering where the hell I had gone wrong with her.  Words will be had. 

I told the children mum would be back for them and they wouldn't be skipping school and they said "we told you so" although Blade did ask if mummy and daddy were getting a divorce.  I said "no of course not".   Daddy had facetimed them before bed last night and mummy wasn't mentioned and I kept out of the conversations that were going on but I did notice in the background when I looked over Inga's head a blond, leather clad young lady flash by.  She could of course have been nothing to do with it and merely Daddy was facetiming from someone else's room.  Well, you have to give him the benefit of the doubt and these Russian girls do like to be helpful and Siberia can be cold and lonely. 

The day continued with me supervising nothing much at all as they four seemed to be able to look after themselves and Thomas and White Bib got on with sleeping and Inga and Blade remembered I said they had to pretend they were cats when they were tired and sleep like them.  In fact this seemed to go down a treat and I only had to call out "sleep time" and "cats" and they curled up next to Thomas.  As long as Thomas wasn't being made to be a pretend Mongoose he was happy.   Afternoon storytime consisted of tales from Siberia (no leather clad girls) and grandma's travels and then River and Finn going outside and pretending my garage was a den.  I couldn't believe my luck....

To be continued...

 

Andy update updated again

 Mandy wanted Andy to be the trade envoy and recommended him to Blair.  Charles said no, don't appoint him.  Blair ignored Charles. 

(I think McSweeney was too young to be advising Starmer. He had no idea what a liar and fraudster Mandelson was.  You need to be older and wiser to be advising the PM).

I think it is a shame that Andrew and Harry did not continue with their military careers.  They were both at their best when they had a proper job to do showing courage and leadership and joining in the camaraderie of belonging to a group. When all this had gone for them they were both lost and the clock could not be turned back.  Just as many who leave the military end up homeless and on the streets, never having known a proper adult home life, missing the helping hand of the military institution, so too have Andrew and Harry and both have become totally lost.  They were more or less in the way as far as the Royal Family went.   

Men like Jeffrey Epstein attract followers like moths around a candle. He lied about his investment qualifications and landed jobs with the big investment houses when he was young, lied about universities and certificates.  He hoodwinked Wexner and made millions in stealing from his businesss, Wexner did not press charges.  Why?  Epstein robbed Wexner of $46M so it is said.  

 I can see why Epstein attracted Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and Ghislaine Maxwell.  Both were lost souls.    Maxwell lost her father without warning.  He had been her life.   Epstein attracted her, swept her off her feet, gave her money, was flamboyant, made her smile again.  So much was she impressed that she would stand outside Florida high schools for him at end of the school day and promising $200 a time she recruited girls for him.  Some were only 14 and all of them thought $200 dollars was great.   I may have said this before but anyone who knows Ghislaine Maxwell as a Maxwell in the family business, and I did because they were high profile when I was broking, her and her brothers, there is no way anyone could have foreseen that this is what she would end up doing.   She was always on her father's arm, she was going to take over, she had been to Oxford, she was a businesswoman in the Maxwell empire.     Mind you Maxwell father was no saint and was crude and quite uncouth and after he died we found out he had robbed the Daily Mirror pension fund.  

When anybody wants to cover up for Maxwell and feel sorry for her, please don't.  Jail is the right place for her.   Andrew is being investigated for misconduct in public life along with Mandelson.   It is sickening that at the time of the financial crash in Britain Mandelson was so pathetic and so shallow that he wanted to make friends and look big by feeding highly sensitive information - way out of order for a man in public office.   Ditto for Andrew who had been entrusted by Blair to act in the best interest of Britain.   

Although it is widely said that the monarchy will survive this, it is now very damaged.  The nation may be split but I think it will be difficult to defend anything about it.     However much Charles expels and rids us of Andrew the damage has been done and the cleaning up job will never make Andrew fade completely.  There is still Harry who is a stain on the Royals with his very silly wedding bride, his pinching of the name Lilibet which was an insult to our late Queen Elizabeth and his wandering around like a lost soul still wanting money and position and respect.  I have no respect for him or Andrew.  William coming along with a lovely wife, Catherine, but William is a stupid, dangerous, ignorant boy too big for his boots and full of empty sanctimony.    I will not be bowing and scraping to him either..  

More with Grandma

 The grandchildren are up before me and I find the older two are getting the woodburner cleaned and the ashes taken out.  I quickly explain to them that the ashes may be hot and they are to be careful and once outside not to put the ashes in the plastic bin because it will melt holes in it.  I speak from experience. The children tell me that they know all about this (yawn) because daddy taught them.  They said mummy is always in bed and doesn't get up very early so daddy teaches them things. 

 Anyway, the woodburner is looking better than it has for months and now they are laying it ready for later.  They know how to do this.  The two middle ones have gone out to fill the woodbasket and bring in kindling.  I told them at their age I was chopping kindling and I would give them a lesson.  I took the chopper that I still have from those days and we set to very carefully selecting the wood from off-cuts I have  been given by the furniture maker and I give them the first lesson which is to find the direction of the grain of the wood.   There was some shouting and eureka moments when this was established and they could both do it.  I explained you are then going to split the wood down that grain.  They see that chopping kindling is actually splitting the wood not cutting.   Once the grain direction has been established we take the chopper and enter with a firm first chop and then lift the whole thing off the tree stump (used as the support table) and then strike up and down on the stump until the first strip is cut.  And then carry on until the piece of wood is split into kindling.   

I leave them doing this and go in and find the older boy is looking at the squid and octopus with the fridge door wide open.  I suggest he closes the door to keep the cold in.  The youngest is playing with the cats.  Thomas is finding it tiresome and his noises suggest to me he is not really enjoying it.  White Bib is looking on.   Both cats have one eye on the squid.  I suggest that I will cook it for tea.   

Later all four are indoors and I explain that mum is not coming back for a few days so they are lumbered with me.  There is a stunned silence which I am not sure whether it is good or bad so I continue quickly that we will continue as we have been and keep busy.  Then starts a lot of questions about what is mum doing and when will she back and I explain that she has been delayed by an advisory role (a euphemism  if ever I heard one and I struggle to keep a serious face on) she is playing in Dubai to a financial consultant but she is likely to meet lots of famous footballers and will no doubt bring back presents for them all. This cheers them and lots of whoops and squeals and I feel I have diverted them enough to get us through the weekend at least.   Now daughter all you need to do is get back here quick.  I decide to message her when the children are occupied. 

Next we plan the squid ink meal which the two older boys have said they will prepare and go off to find You Tube advice and my planning help is not needed except they may need more ingredients I am told.  I hope not as I don't want to go out.  I said we will have to make do with what granny has in the kitchen.  I pointed them in the direction of Mrs Beeton and last I saw they were going through the fish pages looking for squid which probably wasn't there.  You Tube is their preferred choice and they say they want to use their phone to make a Tik Tok film while they are cooking.  I am not sure if this is allowed by mum because the phone is only for contacting her but I am told by Finn that they do Tik Tok all the time.   I nonchalantly ask Finn if he has contacted his mother or heard from her and he replies that she has probably "gone off with a man again" and is "busy" and told me in a very grown up way that I was not to worry and the story about the Dubai finance stuff was probably all lies.  I raised my eyebrows and asked what he meant.  He said "oh mum is always disappearing while dad is away.  She thinks nobody knows".  He added "don't worry grandma, she'll be back".   

The two younger ones want to run around the house so I let them do this on the condition that they leave Thomas alone and when they are exhausted they must pretend to be cats and sleep like he does.  They decide this is ok and disappear upstairs and I hear them opening the wardrobe.  I can't be bothered to interfere and so leave them to it.  Anything for peace.  

All seems quiet and I have satisfactorily achieved a quiet morning for grandma.  

Next I text daughter to find out what exactly is going on.

I see Thelma is at the door.  It is time for another glass of sherry.   Daughter can wait.