Forum Replies Created

Viewing 50 posts - 101 through 150 (of 264 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #60716
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @thane15 @missy thanks both for your congrats and good wishes.  The party is this afternoon so will coincide with the announcement of the new Doctor!  We will be briefing the DJs (who are good friends and one of them is a real Whovian) to play the theme tune and then make the announcement as soon as it’s known.

     

    #60715
    Cath Annabel @replies

    Thanks for good wishes, @jimthefish and @wolfweed.

    #60655
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @blenkinsopthebrave Thank you!

    #60651
    Cath Annabel @replies

    Oh blimey. I was kind of hoping the secret would remain a secret till the Xmas special but I guess that was naive.  On Sunday we will be celebrating my 60th birthday and our ruby wedding anniversary but I guess one or two of us [50% approx of the guests] will be checking our mobiles for news during the proceedings… Just hope it turns out to be another reason to be cheerful!

    #60348
    Cath Annabel @replies

    Bill Potts. You’re a cyberman. You’re part of a neural net. Can you find her.

    @mudlark – I’ve just realised how ambiguous that is.  I heard it at the time as addressing an anonymous cyberman, giving Bill’s name and asking it to find her.  But it’s also possible to hear it as knowingly addressing Bill herself, who is a cyberman and thus part of the neural net – and asking her to find herself, to find the humanity that is still intact.  And the response, either way is the tear, which links us to Heather and to hope.

    #60213
    Cath Annabel @replies

    Yay, we have a first sighting of DEM (Heather) on the Grauniad comments.  Don’t know why I look on there, really, when all the insightful, thoughtful comments are right here.

    I loved that finale.  I am so glad Bill got a kind of afterlife as Bill – and we’ve all been anticipating Heather reappearing, ever since The Pilot, what with the tears and all.  Delighted that we were right about that at least!  It was slightly messy – so much to resolve in such a short time – but intense and emotionally powerful, and each of the leads had a fitting resolution (if not necessarily a final one – who would want to put big money on that being the last we’ve seen of Missy/Master or Nardole or Bill…).

    Re Doc’s resistance to the regen – I am with @bluesqueakpip.  Losing who you are – which is what Bill was so afraid of – and the pain and stress of the change, which seemed particularly hard on this doctor, are enough reason to resist it.  Maybe we are being set up for an It’s a Wonderful Life Xmas special (I’m sure someone else has suggested that on here, but it came up in family convos too)…

    #60078
    Cath Annabel @replies

    Re all the science stuff. I managed to work in a Physics & Astronomy department for ten years without absorbing even the slightest understanding of what they were all on about.  I did once grasp the idea of dark matter for about 5 minutes but then it slipped through my fingers again (like long division and the offside rule).

    #60077
    Cath Annabel @replies

    I miss some of the original contributors too – but I don’t think it’s down to a problem with the site or its current contributors.  I’d guess it’s just, well, events.  Life ‘n’ all that.  I post less than I used to, despite having more free time – partly at first it was the novelty of having a haven from the toxicity of the other place, somewhere I could say what I thought not without encountering disagreement (that would be soooo boring) but without being sneered at or ridiculed or told to go away and read Freud or whatever.   It’s also often that by the time I watch the episode, you lovely lot have been all over it and there’s nothing new for me to say!    But even if I drop back to the sidelines I’m still part of this place, I feel at home here.  My idea of home is not a place without argument.  (This year I celebrate 40 years of marriage to the most argumentative man in the universe  and as they say, it takes two…) But it’s a place where you can argue without treating the other person with disrespect, without disparaging their views or suggesting that they’re not qualified to express them.  By & large, that’s what it’s like here.  Anyone can be tetchy once in a while, and some of us are more inclined to tetchiness than others but hey, that’s like home too.

    So anyone thinking of dropping out, please don’t sever links, we don’t want to lose your input here (that means you @thane15 and Puro).  It all feels very unsettling at present in the Whoverse, with what we know (losing PC and SM), what we think we know (losing PM and MG) and what we don’t know (Who will be Who).  We might need this place even more!  Long may it be a place where we can bicker amicably, exchange bonkers theories, and generally share our passion for this silly old tv programme with others.

     

    #59706
    Cath Annabel @replies

    OK, that’s why I LOVE this place.  Marvell, Powell & Pressburger and all (and a film to add to my must-see list, Snowpiercer).  And the episode was stunning.  The suddenness of Bill’s ‘demise’ was brutal – at least Clara got to be brave, and face the raven on her own terms (kinda). I wasn’t expecting it – not like that, not so soon, not so arbitrarily.

    @thane15 I was thinking of Buffy too (when am I not), that quote in particular, but also Anya’s death.  Obviously Bill isn’t gone, not entirely, but is she – the core humanity of Bill – lost?  That tear might suggest not, not quite yet. In which case she, like Danny Pink, may get a chance to make her death mean something.

    Also @thane15 I thought Fagin when the Master was doing his Razor thing.

    I knew the tears were important – back to The Pilot and Bill’s tears – ‘I don’t think they’re mine’ – and of course Missy’s tears.  But had forgotten the link with A Matter of Life & Death.

    The hospital reminded me strongly of the wartime hospital in Empty Child, with the ambiguity of whether the shadowed figures in the beds are threatening or tragic (or both) – and the moment when Bill realised that the nurse had dealt with the cries of pain by turning the volume down really punched me in the gut.

    As for what the resolution(s) will be, I really don’t know.  The finale has a lot of work to do, and as others have noted, given that this is part of the handover to Chibnall, it would be reasonable to suppose they will not want to leave him with too many conundrums (conundra?) to wrangle in his first season, give him a reasonably clear run at defining his own tenure for the show.

    Oh, crikey, I will miss PC, MG, SM and – if she’s really gone – PM.  Soooo much.  Terribly anxious about Who will be Who next – as I always am at this stage.  Reminding self how I felt when CE left, and then when DT and then MS left and how each time it worked beautifully.  Just – it does matter hugely that they get it right.

     

    #59182
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @pedant Thank you – it means a lot to me that you like it.

    #59169
    Cath Annabel @replies

    I wrote something last night about Grenfell Towers, in sorrow and anger.  You may spot an unattributed quote from the Doctor in there…

    https://cathannabel.wordpress.com/2017/06/16/dark-tower/

    #59106
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @thane15 @pedant  I did indeed write something about I Daniel Blake immediately after seeing at the cinema.  It’s not a perfect film  but immensely powerful in its depiction of people trapped within a system that cannot and will not acknowledge them.  The Job Centre staff too are trapped – if they do try to step outside the system to offer help that isn’t prescribed, they are punished.  Most of the criticism of the film came from people who questioned (without any evidential basis for doing so) the plausibility of what happened to Daniel, and, most tellingly, of that happening to someone who was decent, hard working and honest.  It’s here if anyone’s interested – written in a white heat of anger…

    https://cathannabel.wordpress.com/2016/11/02/i-daniel-blake/

    And of course this is not unconnected to the horror at Grenfell Tower.  It’s ‘social housing’, i.e. housing for people who don’t have real choice in where they live, for people whose voices are often ignored when they protest.  There’s too little of it (too much was sold off under Thatcher and the concept became stigmatised – I was in a seminar a while back with some younger folk, very well educated, in their 20s, and one of them asked what council housing was… ) and it’s in poor condition, and when council budgets are cut so are corners.  It’s not that anyone thinks, ‘they’re just povvos, so no worries if they get incinerated’, they just think they can get away with it and cross their fingers that nothing awful happens.  Well, it has, and something has to change.

    #58476
    Cath Annabel @replies

    Here in the depths of rural Norfolk internet connection is a bit wibbly.  So will seize the moment just to say that on reflection I don’t read Bill’s invocation of her mother as a ‘love saves the day’ thing.  Those memories were created by the Doctor, they’re real because he was there when the photo was taken, but they aren’t part of ‘history’, part of Bill’s official story even.  They’re therefore safe from Monkish interference, unlike everything else.   It’s that rather than the love thing that enables her to win and survive intact.   Having said that, I was sobbing like a babby during the whole thing (and mum-in-law doesnt grasp the whole Nobody Speaks During Who thing so was burbling about cups of tea so I may have missed a nuance or two)…

     

    #58352
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @thane15 I saw a transcript which rendered Penny’s last words in that scene as ‘is it ok if I get an Uber?’!

    #58202
    Cath Annabel @replies

    The more I read your comments and ponder the more I think the events of TPatEotW (oh, that’s too cumbersome, let’s just call it Pyramid, OK?) are another simulation.  The monks playing with ideas – multiple scenarios, from WWIII to plague to terrorism, perhaps seeing how the leaders react and then changing accordingly, so they abandon the WWIII scenario when it’s clear the three world powers are prepared to work together, and so on.  If that’s so, then what are the constants?  That’s what I can’t quite get a hold of at the moment.  Are the Monks a constant, i.e. is that their real form or are they a front for something else?   Something else that will become apparent once they’ve had their consent …. (BTW we don’t watch the Next Time… on Who so there are probably clues we haven’t picked up)

    #58173
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @wolfweed OK that sounds entirely plausible!

    #58171
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @wolfweed Well I did big it up to about 300%…. But no way is Bill 11-12 stone – the numbers must be off one way or another.  I would not want to speculate about her weight either, but she’s only a wee lassie.

    #58167
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @wolfweed Doesn’t that say ‘Male’?  So not Bill’s stats.   I can’t read the numbers anyway…

    @blenkinsopthebrave  Yes, I was unsettled by the way the whole sim thing was dropped.  Am reserving judgement till we see the next ep, because overall I did love Veritas and if I loved this slightly less there was plenty to enjoy and at least like a great deal.

    Anyone identified any Bowie refs in this one?  I haven’t yet but am still pondering.

    #58057
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @pedant @craig @thane15.  Nice article re Mozzer in the New Statesman:

    The records still sound marvellous, of course. Art does not wither. The man sounds less and less marvellous with each passing day. The old pun on a Smiths song title now seems closer to home and closer to the bone than ever: that bloke isn’t funny anymore.

    http://www.newstatesman.com/2017/05/years-have-proved-only-thing-morrissey-understood-was-himself

    #58013
    Cath Annabel @replies

    Interesting to see this update on the notion of a book that cannot be read.  It immediately connected for me with current Agents of Shield (no spoilers, so no more info), but both reminded me of Poe’s The Man of the Crowd which starts off:

    It was well said of a certain German book that “er lasst sich nicht lesen”- it does not permit itself to be read. There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. Men die nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors, and looking them piteously in the eyes- die with despair of heart and convulsion of throat, on account of the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be revealed. Now and then, alas, the conscience of man takes up a burden so heavy in horror that it can be thrown down only into the grave. And thus the essence of all crime is undivulged.

    Which is perhaps where we think we’re going, initially, from the account of the Vatican.  Of course it takes a different turn but that opening:

    <span style=”font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;”>The Veritas is a short document. A few pages only. And yet, it contains a secret that drives all who know it to destroy themselves. </span>

    surely is a reference to Poe? Intriguingly, Poe’s unreadable text is not what it purports to be either.  It’s a real book, “Hortulus Animae cum Oratiunculis Aliquibus Superadditis” of Grunninger, which was a prayer book from the 16th century, which would only be unreadable for someone who did not want to be ‘seduced into licentiousness’, more to do with the illustrations than the words, apparently.  So it’s not really, as Poe suggests, some kind of occult text.  Any more than the Veritas is really the equivalent of the items in Hogwarts library’s Restricted Section…  <i>
    </i>

    Not sure where this is going, but it’s a nice bit of intertextuality if you like that sort of thing…

    #58006
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @miapatrick I literally just poured a glass of whiskey after getting back from a night at the theatre, so cheers & congratulations to you!

     

    #57992
    Cath Annabel @replies

    Like so many, I’ve been on the edge of tears since I woke up to the news from Manchester.  It says everything about these people that for them, pre-teen and teenage girls (& boys), giddy with excitement at a pop concert, are ‘shameless’ and ‘Crusaders’.  But it says everything about the great majority of people that the response was overwhelmingly to help, to go towards the horror rather than to run from it, to offer what they can .  I wrote something on my blog – it feels so inadequate but it helped me to put some of what I feel into more or less coherent words, and I hope it means something to others as well.

    https://cathannabel.wordpress.com/2017/05/23/containing-the-blast/

     

    #57973
    Cath Annabel @replies

    Well, I loved this.  A real change of mood, and lots to ponder on.  Trouble with not having watched till Tuesday night is that you’ve all been bonkerising like mad and I can’t keep up with all your brilliant ideas, so forgive me if I fail to credit anyone with their particular contribution…  The other difficulty is that we are currently engrossed in Agents of Shield, and I can’t really explain why that coincidence is doing my head in without spoilers for those who aren’t caught up with it (it’s far and away the best series yet, btw, so go to it…).

    I think what I’ve been pondering mostly is why those who realise they are not ‘real’ take their own lives, if indeed that is what has happened.  If they realise what’s actually going on – that this is part of a plan to conquer Earth – then how do they get to that understanding?  But that’s the only way I think to understand the CERN response, as @arbutus says.

    Oh crikey.  But yes, full on Moffat here, and for the next few episodes.  Hold on to your hats…

    #57556
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @thane15 @frobisher @whisht et al, loving the more, shall we say, tangential Bowie refs!  I had the lyrics of Space Oddity bouncing around in my head whilst watching Oxygen – floating round the tin can, and then ‘Helmets on’ which is actually in the script although whether that qualifies as a quote being so brief and functional I don’t know.

    #57457
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @phaseshift @Thane15 plus any other Bowie spotters – apart from the visual references to Space Oddity (floating round the tin can, etc) I didn’t pick up anything in the script, but maybe another watch will reveal something.  I haven’t spotted anything in Thin Ice either, so unless I’ve missed that too, we have the eye thing in The Pilot, ‘we’re happy, hope you’re happy too’ in Smile, and the quick glimpse of Heroes in the 1977 housemates’ crate in Knock Knock.  Too many to be random, certainly, but probably better to have them sprinkled subtly through the series rather than shoe-horned in to every episode?

    Liked the twist on the space zombies and the further development of the theme about capitalism – people as fodder for the corporate machine (literal in the case of the fertiliser, and the food for the captive sea beast, more metaphorical in the space station).

    #56561
    Cath Annabel @replies

    Oh @phaseshift, I do hope you’re right. I would love to think that Bowie is there in Who, past and present.  I did think momentarily of Bowie’s eye when I saw Heather’s, but I didn’t follow the thought through.  Will be on Bowie alert from now on.

    #56559
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @littlehouse First, welcome!  You’ll feel right at home here.  I really like your comment on the teardrop – I hadn’t connected those two moments, but I feel sure you’re right that they are significant.

    I don’t know about your other theory – there is something of a consensus that the photos with Bill’s mum were done by the doctor dashing back in time to take some photos to give Bill something by which to recall her mother, since neither Bill nor her foster-mum had any recollection of that box of photos being there previously.  But, as we say so often here, Who knows?

     

    #56302
    Cath Annabel @replies

    Well, I (we) loved this to bits.  Bill is brilliant – funny and gorgeous in a non-bland way, something of a Rose vibe, but not just a re-working of any previous companion.  OK, she’s an orphan/semi-orphan which is a recurrent theme, but I think of that a bit like the convention in children’s fiction going back to Victorian writers whereby being over-encumbered with loving family gets in the way of bobbying off on adventures on a whim.  The companion has to be able to leap into the Tardis, even if they do have some ties and commitments.  But I think its more than that – to have experienced loss at a young age makes them more open to making new connections perhaps.   Anyway, she is terrific.

    @mudlark @kharis I definitely go with the interpretation that Bill’s response to not understanding something isn’t fear or anxiety, it’s a kind of joy that there are things to be learned, understanding to be reached for, and that’s something that marks her out in the Doctor’s eyes.

    I *love* the whole physics and poetry thing.  And a lot of physicist friends of mine are loving it too.

    Watery Heather was genuinely chilling, but with real ambiguity about her/its intentions – I suspect we will learn more.

    Oh, how we have missed Who… I still wish PC wasn’t leaving and feel anxious about who will take over the role (as I always do), and unsure about CC but as of now, every reason to feel positive and delighted.

    Grauniad has already yielded one ‘Worst Episode Ever’ but overall there’s some love for The Pilot even there.

    Allons-y!

    #55909
    Cath Annabel @replies

    https://mydonate.bt.com/events/24hourinspire2017

    That link came out a bit scrambled – see if this is better…

    #55908
    Cath Annabel @replies

    Morning (or whatever it is where you are) Whopeople.  One last shameless plug from me for the 24 hour lecture marathon which kicks off at 17.00 today and goes on till 17.00 on Friday 31st.  Full programme, including details of how you can tune in to our pop-up radio station, if you so wish, from 15.00 today:

    https://inspirationforlifeblog.wordpress.com/2017/03/12/24-hour-inspire-30-31-march-2017-17-00-17-00/

    All in aid of Weston Park Hospital Cancer Charity and Teenage Cancer Trust.  If anyone felt moved/able to donate, we’d be incredibly grateful.

    <span class=”im”>https://mydonate.bt.com/<wbr />events/24hourinspire2017</span>

    No more sleep for me till Friday night, but I’ll be able to turn my thoughts to Who once this is done!

    #55773
    Cath Annabel @replies

    Yes, Happy Buffy Day everyone!  I was browsing @jimthefish‘s superb blogs earlier.  Nicked some of my own Buffy comments on this forum for a hasty blog – https://cathannabel.wordpress.com/2017/03/10/a-slight-apocalypse/

    Really really want to rewatch from the beginning but might settle for a few highlights…

    #55767
    Cath Annabel @replies

    Unbelievably, it is twenty years since Buffy was first broadcast.   Who and Buffy – if that was all there was, spooling endlessly on all tv channels, I’d be content.

    https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/mar/10/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-at-20-the-thrilling-brilliant-birth-of-tv-as-art

    #55643
    Cath Annabel @replies

    Gosh, when one dips in and out on this Forum sometimes one finds oneself unexpectedly immersed – in profound thoughts about the nature of the universe and the meaning of life, and in narratives of personal love and loss.  This one has floored me somewhat.

    I can’t remember whether I have talked on this or other threads about the charity I chair, Inspiration for Life. It was founded by a good friend, a colleague at the University of Sheffield, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer and who wanted to make something positive come out of  what was happening to him.  He died in Feb 2013 and we’ve been raising funds for cancer charities (clinical research, treatment, hospice care, and support for young people with cancer) ever since.  I’m very busy just now organising our annual fundraiser, the 24 Hour Inspire which is a 24 hour lecture marathon, with talks on everything under the sun, a pop-up radio station, live music, stand up comedy, an art show and more.  It will be our fifth, and although it’s exhausting (the organising, and then the staying awake for 36+ hours whilst it’s all going on) it’s absolutely joyous, and Tim, in whose memory we do it, would love every minute of it.  If anyone’s interested in finding out more there are some links here:
    <div>https://<wbr />inspirationforlifeblog.<wbr />wordpress.com/</div>
    <div>http://www.inspirationforlife.co.uk
    https://www.facebook.com/<wbr />Inspire4L/
    @inspire4L</div>
    <div></div>
    <div>Anyone in the vicinity, do come along, it’s open to all.  Or you can tune into Radio Inspire on the night.</div>
    <div>Because we get very generous sponsorship from the Uni whatever we raise will go to the local cancer hospital (Weston Park) and to Teenage Cancer Trust.</div>
    <div></div>
    <div>Cancer is so arbitrary and cruel.  Tim was only 48, and had so much more to do, and so much to give.  My mum was only 65, and ditto.  But both were people of immense warmth and generosity who inspired when they were with us, and continue to do so after their departure, and when I am working for the charity I am always at some level conscious that I’m doing it for them.   And this year for Craig’s wife, and for Steve Hewlett, and for so many more.</div>

    #55357
    Cath Annabel @replies

    Delighted to see so much love both for Billy Bragg, my hero, and Frank Turner, my son’s hero.

     

    #54965
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @ichabod I assumed the mum thought it was Father Xmas, thus he was ‘expected’, though I agree it wasn’t followed up!

    @thane15 Good to have you back!  Looking forward to your thoughts on the Special when the jet lag has passed.

    #54914
    Cath Annabel @replies

    Well, as is traditional with watching the Christmas special on Christmas Day, we had to contend with interruptions and distractions (the cat wanted to come in.  and then out.  and then in.  Drinks needed replenishing, Grandma had the occasional random intervention to do with watchstraps).  So I am certain I missed many of the finer points, but what I saw and heard I liked a great deal.

    We watched the last 3 Xmas specials last night, and so the references back to Husbands of RS were very much in our minds, and we picked up on the first reference to 24 years, whereas we mightn’t have done otherwise.

    We love superheroes, so that plot line was very enjoyable, with the whole trope of people not recognising the alter ego (and the Doctor thinking he was the first to spot that Clark Kent was Superman – ‘look, I’ve drawn specs on Superman!’), and the ‘You’re all wet’.  ‘I prefer mild-mannered’.

    Clearly the zip faced guys will be back…  As will Matt Lucas, and whilst I dislike most of his output, especially Little Britain which I loathed, I like Nardole and feel a bit the same as I did about Catherine Tate, who I really didn’t care for at all in her sketch shows etc, but who I grew to love as Donna (and the end of her arc is something one can’t really speak about without choking up a bit).

    We noted the subtle echo from Time of the Doctor to Last Christmas (Clara helps old Matt Smith Doctor to pull the cracker, the Doctor helps old Clara to pull the cracker) and from Last Christmas to Husbands (Danny to Clara – ‘Do you know why people get together at Christmas? Because every time they do, it might be the last time. Every Christmas is last Christmas, and this is ours.’ The Doctor to River – ‘Every night is the last night for something.  Every Christmas is the last Christmas’).   And in this one there were not only the references to Husbands but the theme of endings.  The Doctor to Clara in Time of the Doctor:  Everyone gets stuck somewhere eventually, Clara. Everything ends.’ And in Hide, Clara says she’s just realised something she didn’t want to, ‘That everything ends.’  In this one, the Doctor says ‘“Everything ends and it’s always sad. But everything begins again and it’s always happy. Be happy.”

    I’m sure there will be more thoughts when I get to rewatch and catch the bits I missed whilst letting cats in (and out) and mending watchstraps.  But for now, it’s bloody marvellous to have him back, and it was a real cracker (festive pun entirely intended).

    Merry Christmas one and all!

     

    #54679
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @pedant Thank you for posting this.  Very apt, and very poignant.

    #54597
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @thane15 @whisht  Billy Bragg is a great favourite of mine – was lucky enough to see him live at Sheffield’s Tramlines festival in 2015.  Very powerful, emotional performance but also with lots of humour.  I was reduced to tears of my own when he did ‘Levi Stubbs’, and also ‘Between the Wars’ which always gets to me.   He also wrote a very interesting book about patriotism and national identity, The Progressive Patriot.

    #54571
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @missrori Re your last point, ‘why was he stuck in the dial so long?’ – I assumed that the time that passed for the Doctor in the dial was quite separate to the time that was passing for others outside it, so to all intents and purposes he might have just popped out for a moment, even whilst for him all of those millennia were passing.  I don’t know if this was addressed, or whether, having been raised on Narnia, I just took it for granted….

    #54502
    Cath Annabel @replies

    We rather liked the Sheffield references. After all, Sheffield includes one of the wealthiest political constituencies in the UK, as well as some of the most economically deprived – so no lack of realism in a Sheffield person being proper posh.  However we took umbrage at ” ‘It was paradise’.  ‘So, not Sheffield then’.”

    #54501
    Cath Annabel @replies

    Plenty of nods to Buffy – not least the sad fate of the headmaster who is eaten, just like Principal Flutie (eaten by the Pack – high school kids possessed by hyena spirits) and Principal Snyder (eaten by the Mayor in the form of a giant snake).

    Overall, lots to like, some creaks and clunkiness but nothing that can’t be sorted.

    #54295
    Cath Annabel @replies

    I think it was this forum where we were talking about Aberfan earlier?  Apols if not, but if you want to read about it, you won’t do better than this from one of my favourite bloggers:

    https://gerryco23.wordpress.com/2016/10/21/aberfan-the-sorrow-and-anger-of-fifty-years/

    #54291
    Cath Annabel @replies

    My thought’s???  Jeez, and I’m usually the apostrophe police…   My thoughts.

    #54290
    Cath Annabel @replies

    https://cathannabel.wordpress.com/2016/10/21/tears-of-rage/  If anyone’s interested, my thought’s on Bob Dylan and the Nobel Prize for Literature…

    #54216
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @puroandson Re BTL comments on Hillsborough, things have improved markedly since the Review and the inquests.  For many years virtually every comment would be blaming ‘drunken, ticketless, late arriving Scousers’ for the disaster.  What I noticed since the inquests was some bright sparks who haven’t bothered reading the coverage of the findings saying ‘of course the fact that lots of fans turned up late, drunk without tickets MUST have been part of the cause’ when that has been completely debunked.  I did respond to one of those recently – in a fairly measured way – and noted that I got a lot of support.  But you’re right about BTL in general – rapid onset of rage, followed by what is even worse, despair…

    Yes the lager/beer distinction is of deep import to me and many Brits.  There is a huge variety of beers out there, with really distinctive flavours (if not killed by over-chilling), and one can be just as much a connoisseur as with wine! Lager to me is a thirst quencher on a hot day rather than a drink I would savour, and I can’t tell one from another.

    #54200
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @puroandson Started the blog over four years ago – it’s somehow turned out to be a lot more political than I envisaged originally!  I blame Events.  Anyways, thanks all for kind comments, @jimthefish et al.

    It’s so brilliant that Son is getting so much out of this Forum, above and beyond the Who content.  The notion that, thanks to discussions here, he is now informed and informing others re Hillsborough and Joss Whedon and all sorts of stuff, well it inspires me.

    Have to back @mudlark up re ‘warm beer’.  Lager and suchlike need to be served cold but as they have no real flavour anyway, there’s no loss.  Proper beer should be at cellar temperature, to allow one to truly appreciate the subtlety of the flavour.  Personally I like it up to room temperature (my father in law used to warm his beer up on the hob, which even as a teenager I thought was pretty weird).

    Re Aberfan, like Hillsborough, a single name that conjures up a whole world of horror.  I was 9 when it happened, and I do remember the news reports. Now, as an adult and a parent, the impact of it is so much more intense.  There are parallels with Hillsborough – the fact that the disaster was eminently foreseeable, that those in authority tried from the outset to wriggle out of their responsibility for it, the callousness displayed towards the bereaved (can you credit that Charity Commission staff considered whether to insist that before any payment from the relief fund was made to bereaved parents, each case should be reviewed to ascertain if the parents had been close to their children and were thus likely to be suffering mentally?).  But the one thing that is  different of course is that no one attempted to claim that the Aberfan victims had themselves caused the disaster – something that commentators below the line are saying to this day about Hillsborough, despite the clear outcomes of every inquiry since Taylor.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    #54189
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @blenkinsopthebrave Just spotted a typo that entirely changes the gist of what I wrote above (#54185) – what I actually meant to say was ‘having more time to read and write stuff is a joy‘!  Can’t even blame auto-correct…

    #54185
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @blenkinsopthebrave Thank you so much!  Re retirement, I’m still working out in many ways how to do it.  I had to be so fearsomely, fanatically organised all my working life to do the stuff I did, that I didn’t want to carry that over into retirement, but I do now need to plan my time a bit more, so I’m trying to find the right balance.  Having said that, I haven’t regretted it for a nano-second, and having more time to read and write stuff is a job.  I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on retirement – I started drafting a blog piece about it ages ago but realised it was too early in the process so I might revisit that at some point.

    #54167
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @puroandson  Many thanks for your kind words and support.  And a wave to Son!

    More than happy to share the blog with anyone who might be interested!  This is the link:

    https://cathannabel.wordpress.com/

    Must catch up on all the discussions on the site – haven’t yet visited the new pub yet!

    #54095
    Cath Annabel @replies

    @ichabod Yes The Returned was wonderful.  And v v French as you say!  I loved the second series too – it didn’t provide neat explanations or resolutions (which made some viewers rather cross), and the ending left us with mysteries and ambiguities, as well as an acknowledgement of the circularity of the process of life, death, birth and rebirth.  I hope there won’t be a series 3 – it doesn’t need one, and perhaps French tv is slightly less prone than British or American to carrying on beyond the point when the ideas have run out .

Viewing 50 posts - 101 through 150 (of 264 total)