The Journey

I was drawn to this film as it starred Timothy Spall and Colm Meaney, two incredible character actors whose work I’ve admired for many years.

The Journey is the fictional dramatisation of a true event, in 2006 the first initial talks of the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement were being held in St Andrew’s Scotland. An incredibly precarious intense meeting between the two highly charged staunch political figures and their associates. However Dr Ian Paisley needed to return to Northern Ireland to attend the celebration of his golden wedding anniversary, bad weather closed the local airport but when a proposal to use a different airport was put to Martin MaGuinness he cited the protocol that he and Paisley must travel together to prevent any attempted assassination plot, thus the two men were driven to the airport where a private jet awaited them both.

Unbeknown to these two figures MI5 had one of their operatives as the driver, and had bugged the car with microphones and mini camera to listen to what the two men might discusse in hope of getting useable intelligence to help the talks progress. Initially neither man can bear to look at the other, neither wanting to give in and look/speak first either. Both despising the history, the past actions, the beliefs and hopes for the future, it seems impossible to find any uncontroversial common ground.

Timothy Spall as The Reverend Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, is astounding, his mastering of mannerisms and instantly recognisable voice and vocal manner is remarkable, along with the craft of make up and wardrobe completing an incredible transformation.

Colm Meaney as Martin MaGuinness the republican politician for Sinn Fein and leader of the Provisional IRA is captivating. There is a true sense of battle weary, concern that the movement and ‘the troubles’ are breeding another generation of soldiers without fully understanding the cause and reasoning. Fighting an unwinable civil war.

Even though I grew up during this era and vividly remember the news reports of street warfare, the terrorist bombings and numerous attacks, the core fight was not really understood or known, other than Catholic versus Protestant. Listening as these two enemies eloquently spoke of their experience through life, their earnest beliefs,

Without giving too much away, gradually through this journey there are cracks in their iron resolve, there are moments where the human comes out instead of the political representative, even moments of mirth, and a couple of plot twists which question what one thinks of the other.

As they are about to board the plane the two men speak alone, perhaps this is the moment when they can acknowledge that while they fervently disagree with each other they can at least respect each other’s passion and commitment.

It’s a film I feel I need to watch again, to enjoy what I know is coming and perhaps catch a few nuances I missed first time around.

 

The Founder

The Founder, currently available on Amazon Prime, is the biopic dramatisation of how Ray Kroc expanded and styled himself as the “founder of The McDonald’s Corporation”.

Michael Keaton’s portrayal of the conniving ruthless all American opportunistic entrepreneur of the mid 50’s through early 60’s is captivating, you grow to dislike the guy. Undoubtedly a hard worker, always looking for the next big thing that will bring him success and progress. His aspirations are genuine it’s his methods that you question.

McDonald’s was a small walk-up diner in San Bernardino operated by the brothers who through trial and carefully planned thought had devised the speedee kitchen system. John Carroll Lynch’s depiction of Maurice “Mac” McDonald is brilliantly calm and tight, you’d maybe wonder if in this modern age he’d possibly be on the Asperger’s/Autistic spectrum with his analytical accute senses and manners. An astute sense of principle, the ethics and ethos of McDonald’s, a small, clean, family friendly eatery that had somehow cornered what ever ‘it’ was that made a burger and fries something so delicious and satisfying. His meticulous attention to detail, that fries are fried at this temp not a degree less, the fries are this thin and that long, there’s always two pickle and burgers uniformly grilled each side. Nick Offerman plays Richard “Dick” McDonald the younger brother more easy going and trusting than his brother, often the trainer and front of house face.

Initially Ray was a travelling salesman trying to sell milkshake machines and when one restaurant ordered eight he was intrigued and drove to see why. He met the brothers, was shown their business and how it operated and he hit upon the idea of franchising. Initially the brothers were resistant as previous attempts had failed due to inconsistent practises, lack of menu control and the McD ethos. While trying to garner investors and potential managers Ray realised rather than big money men investing and immature managers, getting middle class married couple to invest and work maintained the work ethics and family friendly atmosphere. Pushing ahead with a sketch of a diner Mac had drawn that introduces the Golden Arches and bright clean all glass frontage, things begin to roll.

Mac had been meticulous in the contract drawn up between the brothers and Ray but it hampered the gung-ho race forward eagerness of Ray and they constantly argued and differed. Increasingly unhappy with his 1% franchise commission Ray attempts to renegotiate his contract and loosen the brothers grip but they won’t budge, a deal is a deal and they must maintain continuity and control. After a chance conversation with a financial advisor Ray sets up the Corporation to buy land that is then leased to the franchisees, who pay fees to be McDonalds. This was his golden ticket to making money and the start of circumventing the brothers control.

Things come to a head when Dick suffers a diabetic stress collapse and heart attack. The brothers concede to let Ray out of his contract by buying them out, maybe without realising the full ramifications of what that would bring.

Before long Ray forced the brothers to remove the McDonald’s name from their restaurant citing intellectual property rights, he deliberately built the 100th diner across the road from them essentially sealing their demise. At the negotiation of dissolving the contract Ray had persuaded the brothers to agree to a handshake deal on the 1% royalties from the franchise, Ray denied it happened and never paid out. Ray paid each brother just over $1million (about $26milliom in todays money but a fraction of the businesses value today).

Years later when Ray was interviewed he said he liked the name “McDonalds” so much nicer than Kroc, so much more wholesome American.

Today it’s said that on a daily basis McDonalds feeds 1% of the global population – now who’d like to go get me a Big Mac Meal please?

 

Scan Ship Sell Easy? (Nope)

We’ve all seen the adverts over the past few years, simply scan your item’s barcode, box it up and the courier chappy with a cheery smile will collect it and ping, money appears into your account. It’s a great way to sustainably handle your unwanted items, it’s easy to use and sounds all very shiny.

Yeah. Right. Now regular readers will know I am highly dubious of anything that describes itself as ‘easy’, ‘simple’, ‘quick’, ‘straightforward’ etc. with my impending move, knowing I will have to be ruthless with the cull, I thought using these options would make disposal of my books, cds and DVD’s reasonably pain free.

I should have trusted my gut 🤦‍♀️

I am already in an emotional turmoil, feeling overwhelmed with all that has to come together before this impending move. While BFF was here we went through my assorted clutter and I downloaded a few apps to use. It was a nightmare! The first hurdle is that the scanner works so quickly, without realising I’d scanned the same thing multiple times because you’re not sure whether the darned thing had scanned the bar code or not (some apps are better than others). Then there are the number of items it rejects because either it doesn’t recognise the barcode or it announces with sniffy attitudes “We are not interested in this item at present”. But by far the most utterly diabolically demoralising aspect of the process was the pittance they offered.

More than half of my collection of media was rejected. What it did accept they were offering prices between 4pence and £1. Out of 70+ items it graciously accepted I had amassed the grand total of less than £15! The potential for insult doesn’t end there, because when you box and send off your goods they then check and ‘adjust’ the offer (downwards) depending on condition. So utterly not worth all the efforts – it’s all going to the local charity shops.

My curiosity got the better of me and went deep diving about the internet. One of my pristine unwrapped DVD’s specials was being sold for £12 and I was offered just 27p……..that’s taking the ‘p’.

I hate all this.

 

Cut outs

It’s curious how you find yourself realising you’re missing something you hadn’t noticed was not there.

An odd statement I know, let me elaborate.

For Christmas I got some lovely gift vouchers and I knew exactly what I would treat myself to, there were three films that I enjoy watching again and again and to avoid the faff of remembering ahead of time to get carer to load the dvd (built into the tv) I decided to ‘buy’ the digital copies. It’s the way things are going, technologically wise, buying a version that you stream (assuming it’s not already included in subscription packages etc) rather than a physical copy.

I aimed the remote at the tv and clicked buttons and settled to be entertained all over again, getting comfortable in re-experiencing the fun of the films. Later one night as I was pondering the mental meanderings of my thoughts I realised one of those thoughts brought about an “oh yeah” type response.

Back in the day of dvd advertising, you’d get inducements of the exciting ‘extras’ (deleted scenes etc) or the ‘Directors Cut’, or a film would be available under two different age classifications – with streaming we no longer get any of that.

Sooo…… dear reader …… how many of you have just gone “Oh yeah” as you never gave it a thought.

 

Fictional Truth

It is a rare thing these days to have a moment where you are caught and actually laugh out loud. Well it is for me. There may be times when a quick witted quip or a punchy sarcastic one liner raises a chuckle, or a jovial intake of breath ala Dr Sheldon Cooper but an actual physical laugh rarely emits.

Yesterday as I was crocheting a row or two on the next blanket creation I had started a kids animated movie ‘SpyCat’. I enjoy the simplicity of these films and the insight into the oddities of human behaviour that can make you think. Plus they’re just cute, untaxing entertainment. The premise is straightforward, a much pampered indoor house cat who spends her days watching tv ends up outside, meets up with a street wise, much unloved resentful dog. They and their friends must solve a mystery into a spate of burglaries.

The to and fro between Marnie the cat and Elvis the dog was endearing, a kin to put upon elder brother and innocent younger sister type bickering. There is a point where their different backgrounds and experiences causes a squabbling discussion and when Marnie shouted her line, I physically laughed out loud, almost dropped my stitch!

I know all about reality, I’ve seen it in tv!

It struck me because I could hear it being shouted and hurled by kids and teens at their parents, that the “reality” shows that pervade our screens are being eagerly, greedily, devoured by young impressionable minds as truth.

A few months ago a carer told me of a conversation she had with one of her pupils (She teaches 5-6 year olds). The child had asked why a class member from Africa was not starving and had flies all over his face. Teacher was quite perplexed by the statement, it turned out that child spends a lot of time at Granny’s who must watch a lot of a certain tv channel whose adverts are those asking for donations, such as WaterAid, Save The Children, Red Cross etc. All these adverts show extreme poverty and starvation, innocent dark faces with numerous fat flies watching across their sunken cheeks and swollen through malnutrition bellies. These adverts were planting the impression that ‘Africa’ is a dried earth desert of nothingness with lions, elephants and children dying without water and food.

As adults we may not realise to what extent this shinny screen has on young minds, the misinformation formed and clung to as fact. As the world becomes more dependent on screens, the lines between fact and fiction, truth and engineered entertainment, reality and structured realism. More and more there is the notion “It must be true, I read it on the internet”

 

Sound Of Metal

The premise of this movie seems straightforward – Ruben is a metal drummer, he and his girlfriend drive around the States in their rv, gigging in numerous backstreet venues, scratching together a ramshackle living. But then in a short space of time he looses his hearing and all stability is lost.

However, after watching this film, which is cleverly put together, there are numerous tricks used that you don’t realise until afterwards, and then you notice that the film has much more deeper levels of philosophical notions.

When we have a sudden debilitating or life changing health issue we want to be fixed, to get back to our “normal”. Ruben wants cochlea implants so he can get back to drumming and life on the road with Lou, where he is comfortable in his known world and the demons and temptations of his pre-Lou life will not invade. But that’s impossible, the clarity of hearing with any aid is not the same as natural hearing, it brings with it difficulties of its own.

Once Ruben is told of his problem, you are taken through how much we rely on ambient sound, how simple things like telephone calls, a conversation with a friend, communicating with a stranger are stressful, frustrating. The initial denial that this new situation is not ‘forever’. Ruben is taken to a deaf community facility, where everyone signs, there are no phones, no use of computers, total submersion in silent life. Here the director uses a clever trick, the sign language is not subtitled, we the viewer like Ruben are unable to understand what is being said around him. But as he learns to use sign and communicate and read people around him, so we get subtitled and find we’ve become more involved, more emotionally invested in his journey.

It’s interesting too, to see the deaf community reaction to these implants. Many deaf communities call them a ‘cure’, a refusal to embrace deafness as a lifestyle and not a disability or something of shame, people with implants are often shunned from such communities. But isn’t a hearing aid/implant the same as a prosthetic to the amputee? A tool, an aid, to be used when needed! Hmm, interesting notion.

Ruben is determined to get the implants, to leave the community, despite the calmness, the inclusion and friendship, the place and purpose he discovers, and return to Lou and music. When he gets that chance, is it all that it is expected to be, that what’s best for the two of them, or does Ruben need to find that inner place of stillness.

My common niggle with films of this nature is how you get the notion of time, maybe I didn’t pick up on the changes of the seasons on the trees to get that sense that we are passing through the months. I don’t recall scenes with things like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Independence Day, Graduation Day celebrations going on, being in the U.K. snow on the ground could be anytime, it’s snowed in June before now.

I recommend watching this film, it’s moving, telling, heart tugging, rarely amusing, but so insightful.

 

Sunny holibobs

Back to normalcy with a winding thrump, after a smidge over two weeks with my BFF, where we enjoy snacks, cats, stitching and bitching (as in kvetch at the idiocy of some and how their get their knotted thong wedged up their butts being mean to others), foods we normally do not have like sausage, egg and chips! We wandered out and about, even got to the seafront esplanade and had an ice cream, with a flake too!!

We both went out for pedicures and I got my hair harvested (not saying it needed it but the vacuum had to be emptied midway as the bucket was full). Jobs and errands got taken care of. And I was spoilt rotten with attention. I love my BFF time, such fun, we even kareoke-d into the wee hours remembering lyrics to songs we hadn’t heard in decades. There were a couple of times we both laughed so hard, and kept setting each other off again, until we almost ‘oops-ed’ ourselves.

Of course Mickey (#NotMyCat) and Ginge (#NotMyCat2) were in hog heaven, practically getting food on demand, well Moocher does have a penetrating stare. Ginge is still a little timid but did settle on the sofa between us on the day of rain. With windows and doors left ajar from early morning until bed time they had free range to come and go at their whim, which they did. BFF bought a brush and Mickey really seemed to enjoy stretching out on the floor and being brushed, the implement soon choked with his white fur. As for the scratch mat, it’s a work in progress.

Avoiding the football we indulged in some serious binge viewing as well as a few films and documentaries

Live & Let Die
Moonraker
The Spy Who Loved Me 
Pilgrimage (bbc iPlayer)
Octopus Teacher (Netflix)
Life series
Blue Planet series
Penguin Town (Netflix)
The Wizard of Oz
Moulin Rouge
Singing In The Rain
Believe Me : Abduction of Lisa McVey
Steel Magnolias 
Titanic
Kedi (Cats of Istanbul)
One Chance (Paul Pott story)
The Man Who Knew Too Much
Thelma & Louise
Mona Lisa Smile
Rat Race
Frankie & Grace (Netflix series)
The Pharmacist (Netflix documentary)
FireFly Lane (Netflix series)

All too soon as always she’s packing the suitcase, putting the duvet back on the bed and we’re waiting for the taxi to whisk her away……we restart the clock for when she can return to play again.

 

The Cecil Hotel, LA

Recently I binged the Netflix documentary series Crime Scene The Vanishing At The Cecil Hotel, it was an interesting watch, if you’re into real life oddness.

It centres around the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, a 700-room hotel opened in the mid-1920’s just before the Great Depression, along with several grand hotels in the area it enjoyed a period of opulent prosperity and was aimed at the middle class traveller and business men. After World War II the area, also known as Skid Row, fell further into transience as fortunes changed, the stark increase in sex workers, drug dealing and users, along with those unable to afford rents and the increasing protocol to herd the homeless into a manageable area of the ever expanding City, increased criminal activity.

Curiously ever since the Hotel first opened it has been linked to suicides, mysteries and murders. The first documented suicide was January 22, 1927, when Percy Ormond Cook shot himself in the head while inside his hotel room after failing to reconcile with his wife and child. In 1967 “Pigeon Goldie” Osgood long-term resident, a retired telemarketer was found dead in her room, she had been raped, stabbed, beaten and her room ransacked. Her murder remains unsolved. The Press often linked the hotel to numerous serial killers. Frequently residents had died from drug overdoses or long term substance and/or alcohol abuse. There is even a Wikipedia page detailing some of them.

The documentary beds itself around the disappearance in February 2013 of young Canadian student Elisa Lam. She was an avid blogger and frequently documented her travels, fashion, life thoughts online garnering many regular followers. When away from home she called home everyday, after her parents hadn’t heard from her they called the LAPD and news started circulating about a missing person. As the Police struggled to piece together Elisa’s movements they released the elevator CCTV footage, it went viral and set in motion an interesting series of events.

An army of ‘web-sleuths’ scrutinised in meticulous details, frame by frame, the cctv sparking the beginnings of numerous conspiracy theories, many still perpetuate. Things like, why’s the time stamp jumping, the door isn’t closing, whose that shadow. Suddenly people across the globe were gathering in FaceBook groups to discuss minute anomalies, some visiting the hotel to re-enact and trace where she had been. What I found very telling as the documentary continued was how this congregation of unqualified amateurs ardently believed they could succeed where the professionals could not and that they believed every morsel of conjecture and hypothesis from a straightforward mugging gone wrong to the CIA using vanishing vaporise lasers. But there was more to come.

SPOILER ALERT :: if you don’t want to know the outcome I’d suggest ceasing here …. thank you for reading ….

……

….. Okay dear reader, I hope you’re not eating or drinking while you read on.

…….

About two to three weeks after Elisa’s vanishing a few hotel guests and residents started to complain that the water had an odd odour and taste and the water then started to change colour to a sludgy brown. A maintenance worker was sent to inspect the four roof top water tanks. Sadly one of them contained the floating bloating remains of a young girl, later identified as the missing traveller.

Now the merry band of web sleuths really had something to get overly involved with. From behind their screens and keyboards they pieced together bits of facts with leaps of notions, ignored some elements and fantasised others, to quite catastrophic levels.

Attention turned to how did Elisa get onto the roof. The access door was locked and alarmed, this meant that the hotel management had to be involved, a member of night staff had to have killed her. The design of the building meant that there was a metal fire escape on the outside, a series of stairs and platforms covering all fifteen floors, including the roof, accessed from a hallway window that was not alarmed, locked or monitored in anyway. Debris on the roof showed that it was frequently used by people to smoke, drink, take drugs, have parties etc.

The nature of her discovery caused a media frenzy as a police chief was leaving the hotel trying to get through the jostling crowd of reporters he was asked a question which he hastily replied “When Officers approached the water tank the hatch was closed”. The web brigade pounced on this to mean that she must have been dumped because no-one could close the hatch from the inside, so it must be murder. The officer was correct in his statement, because when the maintenance worker noticed the hatch was open and that’s when he discovered the grizzly contents and had closed the hatch from habit as he called for help.

Searches across the internet brought up ‘evidence’ of a Mexican death metal singer called Morbid, due to his chilling lyrics, which included a reference to a girl drowning and his dark videos addressing death (one was filmed at The Cecil), along with having stayed there, meant he must have lured her to the rooftop and killed her. He was hounded, trolled, and harassed over a period of months, received death threats and villanised as a murderer by the Court of Online Public Opinion. It caused him to suffer a breakdown and such depression that he attempted suicide. The ‘evidence’ grasped by the onliners was years old and at the time of Elisa vanishing Morbid was in Mexico but even still today eight years later he still get mail labelling him a murderer.

One aspect of Elisa’s life was, to some degree, suppressed until late on in the investigations and not readily available, she had been diagnosed as bi-polar and had a history of intentionally not taking the prescribed medication, which had caused her to experience strong psychotic episodes, along with hallucinations in the past. Armed with this knowledge, along with the Coroner’s report showing toxicology levels and there being no evidence of any assault or violence on her body, it was concluded that her death was accidental.

At the end, I felt sad that this young life had ended, that so many innocent people had been branded and abused because of tenuous links but mostly I was concerned, almost worried, about the mob mentality and power of online collectiveness. This ferocious hungry entity eagerly hurrying for instant information, affirmation and inconsequential action feels a little bit like Pandora’s box.

 

My Bubble Done Burst

My bubble just burst and BFF has left to return home. You see she had planned to come visit as soon as she got home from her June/July visit and again as her travel date approached there were changes with Covid rules that threw everything in the air. Anyway, it was decided that her visit would indeed be classed as ‘essential’ because she’d be my primary sole care provider, leaving the hovel only to get food. So our plans went ahead ……. a few minutes ago her taxi turned the corner and she’s setting back for home.

We always have fun, eat foods we don’t usually eat, watch films and documentaries, play games, talk, laugh, cry, discuss, entertain and be entertained my Signor NotMyCat, go to bed late, lay in even later. A few chores get done and of course online shopping for those thought-about-semi-essential items. I became designated yarn unwinder as she crocheted a ripple blanket, this time breaking her speed record (I’m claiming credit for it). But all too soon it comes to a close, and I am eternally grateful to BFF’s hubby for letting her come for the extended pj-party.

Our viewing list is quite extensive when seen altogether.

• The Queen’s Gambit
• The Crown (series 4)
• Making A Murderer (both seasons)
• Joe Exotic The Tiger King
• Secret Love (Netflix documentary)
• Stepmom
• Johnny English
• Johnny English Returns
• Johnny English Strikes Back
• Mr Holland’s Opus
• Extremely Loud Incredibly Close
• Forrest Gump
• Sweethome Alabama
• Atonement
• My Big Fat Greek wedding
• Bridge of Spies
• October Skies
• Little Man Tate
• Most Hated Woman in America
• Twenty Feet From Stardom
• As Good As It Gets
• Ruth & Alex

I cannot begin to fathom the intelligence of Joe Exotic and the Making A Murderer documentaries, it certainly made for conversation and the Making A Murderer became compelling viewing as we waited for the next twist and turn to the fates of the family members. If you’ve got twenty hours spare I’d recommend it, it will boggle and bewilder beyond sanity.

Soooo, yeah, back to my usual with a bump…..

 

Tall Ship Chronicles

A FaceBook member of a sailing group posted that the first eight episodes of this series had been released on Amazon Prime. Hmm, might be interesting to watch life aboard another ship, curiosity had me tapping play.

The premise is Andrew Younghusband (a Canadian actor and broadcaster) joins the 3-masted barque Picton Castle as volunteer crew for the 19-month around the world voyage. Along with his film crew of one, they document life on board, their fellow crew and places visited on this sail training expedition. This series covers leaving Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, heading south to the Panama Canal, and across the South Pacific to Vanuatu.

Bearing in mind it was filmed in late 2000 and across 2001 I was prepared for it to feel a bit dated and the clarity of filming not crisp, but I was not prepared for the lack of informative content and blatant lack of continuity in editing. It had an amateurish feel to what was supposed to be a professional production. You would imagine the first episode or two would tell you about the ship, it’s routine, the watch routine, the victualling and feeding the crew, maybe an introduction to some of the equipment, methods of rope handling and knots and what a job title means (Bosun, lead mate, etc). Sadly all that was missing or skimmed over in a throw away comment.

Considering they left snowy Canada in November within minutes the crew were seen clad in t-shirts and shorts. There was no way to perceive the passage of time, not even a little ‘day ?’ type logo in the corner.

By episode three you begin to recognise characters and can see that after a significant number of weeks, personalities within this isolated, confined bubble are gelling, cliquing and romances are developing. People become comfortable with each other, whilst remaining comparative strangers, many not knowing whether their fellow crew member is married or single, their day job, or much about their past, but willingly share clothing, shampoo, hugs and thoughts.

There were also one or two surprise reactions, sailing is not a democracy and cannot be done by committee, there has to be a leader and that leader is always the Captain. Living on a vessel that is moving constantly, through weather that is ever changing, people’s action or inaction can have a dramatic consequence. As learning crew you will get corrected and criticised for things not done ‘the ship’s way’, laziness or apathy along with sassy sarcasm quickly becomes not tolerated. Some people became resentful of being told how to do something they felt they are doing correctly and begrudged what felt like working in a dictatorship, especially when you’ve paid a lot of money to be there. But that’s the nature of the beast.

It was interesting to see how they all pulled together, how actions became instinctive, the perilous become normalised and whether they all realised it or not, they were learning a lot about sailing, the world and getting along with people. It reminded me of my first voyage how the ship became our complete world.

I think I was looking to come away from the eight episodes entertained by things that happened, having learnt about areas of the globe, reminded of some of the sailing language I had forgotten, and intrigued by the characters. It felt like an opportunity missed with how the programme was edited together – still it was heaps better than things like Big Brother and TOWIE.

There is one thing that has left me hanging and will likely never know the answer to, there was a twelve year old onboard (without his parents too), I wonder what life was like for Sloan when he returned home and started high school, and how is life eighteen years on.

There are another eight episodes to complete the series but with no idea when or if Amazon Prime will drop them, I might have to see if YouTube has them.