SevenMinutesToMidnight

Just watched 'The Strangers' ( 2008 ) , starring the lovely Liv Tyler ( Lord of the Rings ) , and the Ben Affleck lookalike Scott Speedman .
A young couple return late to their isolated home , after his having presented her with an engagement ring , which she does'nt feel ready for yet .
Then a young woman bangs on the door , and asks if someone ( Tamra ? ) is at home  .  .  .
He goes out in the car to get her some cigarettes , then the woman bangs on the door again , and then  .  .  .
It's uneasy from the start , and relentlessly and very effectively cranks up the tension for the first 40 minutes or so .
Then it kind of loses its way , before becoming chilling again in the last few minutes .
Who are the three masked intruders , a wheezily asthmatic man and two younger women , and what do they want ?
I was hoping for an ingeniously unexpected twist at the end , and , at only 75 minutes ( minus the end credits ) it's actually too long , as with minimal plot development it struggles to maintain the creepy suspense , but if you enjoy disturbingly scary movies you're unlikely to be too disappointed with it .
It was on my list when I was subscribing to lovefilm.com , but I was never sent it . They pester you to list at least 20 dvd's you want to borrow , and you're not gauranteed to receive your priorities .
The Australian scary movie about a young couple in danger Storm Warning , and the British one Eden Lake are both better than 'The Strangers' , and there's a presumption in such movies of the man being killed and the woman surviving .
I succumbed to buying a 37" Panasonic tv , and our neighbours have bought my Sony 32" one second-hand  ( dvd movies with small aspect ratios seem too small on a 32" screen ) , but which I somewhat regret as the picture on the Sony one is better .
There's been much talk about the dreadful case , in Leeds , of a lady who asked a group of teenagers to please be quiet in a cinema having been , with her husband and children , followed out of the cinema  by two lads , then , when the family were eating at a restaurant they took revenge for having been asked to be quiet by throwing bleach in her face , at least temporarily - perhaps permanently - damaging her eyesight .
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5hpeAGb3M9Jz88bk-mvqpSz1hLH2Q
We seem to be hearing more and more about some young people thinking they have the right to behave as they please and to viciously physically attack anyone who tells them anything they don't want to hear .
So depressing . And without 'moral guidance' from anyone who they respect , or appropiate sanctions against such behaviour we cannot expect to begin to feel safer .
Of course the favourite television programme of all morons , Eastenders , funded by all tv licence payers , will continue to portray revenge as normal , acceptable behaviour .

It's shameful though unsurprising that the former hacker into supposedly top secret U.S government and military computer systems Gary McKinnon lost his appeal , in the High Court this morning , against being extradited to the U.S to stand trial in Virginia , almost certainly resulting in a lengthy sentence , to be served in a very unpleasant jail .

He says , and I believe him , that the computers he hacked into , looking for evidence of knowledge of UFO/Alien  'free energy' technology - which , IF it exists , could in theory solve many of our planet's problems - were unsecured by passwords or firewall software .

He repeatedly hacked into the systems using a dial-up connection in 2001 and 2002 , and the U.S judiciary waited until after Tony Blair changed the rules in 2005 , allowing British citizens to be extradited to the USA without proof of their alleged wrongdoing - but Not the other way round - before launching extradition proceedings .

He left messages on the unsecured computers saying they should be secured  .
He allegedly 'shut down' U.S military computer networks for two days , but no one in Britain believes that he was acting maliciously , and the charges that he caused thousands of dollars worth of damage to the computers is blatent nonsense , though likely to be accepted by a U.S jury . Also he was bullyingly told that if he fought the extradition he'd end up with a longer sentence .

He's since been diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome , which means he's a vulnerable person , and explains the obsessiveness of his actions .

His crimes were committed in Britain , and yet it seems likely that he will have to undergo the ordeal of trial and prison in America , which his mother believes he will not survive .

Unfortuately the announcement of the death of former football manager Sir Bobby Robson completely overshadowed coverage of the failiure of Gary McKinnon's high court appeal on Radio5live this morning , and the Daily Mail's laudable campaign on his behalf will have caused a few people who don't like The 'Mail to refuse to support his case .

Prime Minister Gordon Brown , who seems as in awe of President Obama as his predecessor Tony Blair was of President Bush , could publicly give a respectful but strongly worded message to Obama on G/McKinnon's behalf , but he will not .

If President Obama , who when campaigning for his presidency made much of his apparent concern for disadvantaged people , wanted to he could personally halt the extradition proceedings , allowing Mr McKinnon to be tried and sentenced in Britain , but , 'don't hold your breath' .

The Only Ones : Another Girl , Another Planet , released then re-released in the 70's , then again in the 90's and possibly since then too . . .
A brilliant , timeless , huge hit that never quite was .

The subject of the Radio5Live Nicky Campbell phone-in this morning was : Are some people just not fit to be parents , to which the resounding answer must be Yes .
I think that child-benefits should be paid in vouchers , which can only be spent on food , children's clothing , and other necessary expenses associated with parenting  .
I don't want to stigmatise decent parents , as most parents are , but that might go some way towards disincentivising irresponsible parenting .
And , with the exception of parents convicted of horrendous , deliberate , sustained cruelty against their offspring I don't think that anyone should be forced to undergo permanent sterilisation , however in a few cases it might not be unethical to offer incentives for volunteering for that .
The question arose : Does every person , or every couple have a 'Right' to have children ! No , although it should be made easier for decent people who are for whatever reason unable to have children of their own to adopt .
I can't abide the attitude of some people that there's something suspect about adults who are not parents , and/or that being a parent should be in itself a badge of honour and respect .
I'm inured to the idea of missing out on the joys of being part of lovingly nurturing a new life into childhood , and guiding it into adulthood .
That's okay , my 'ex' didn't want children ,  her taking our cat away with her when she left me was bad enough ,  and I certainly don't expect ( or necessarily want ) The State to provide me with a baby for me to single-handedly look after as my 'right' !

" Consider the various ways sexuality presents itself . Promiscuity , homosexuality , adultery , divorce , nudity and even erotic art send some people up against the border of their comfort zone . Many would rather have their spirits crushed by supressing their sexual desires than appreciate the possibilities . Sex is a potent presentation of life's vitality , and the way we deal with sex often reveals how open we are to life . "
From an article by the former Catholic monk , and author of books including Care of The Soul and Dark Nights of the Soul Thomas Moore , in the sep/oct 2008 issue of Resurgence magazine .

" The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it . Resist it , and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden itself  .  .  . "
From chapter 2 of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray .

I'd never want anyone to try to use the above quotes to try to justify anything abusive or harmful . But , it's true , that from adolescence to whenever we decide we've had enough of all that we are sexual , sexually needy and sexually responsive beings , which in itself should be nothing whatever to feel ashamed of .

I've been largely celibate for some time because ( a ) I'm not the most socially confident of people and ( b ) the appropiation of a sexual partner can seem so confusingly complicated and commercialised nowadays , and consorting with prostitutes - though I do not in principal object to their choice of profession , providing it is their choice - is not for me .

It's easy for gay men to find casual sex ( i.e via the gaydar w/site ) ,  but for single heterosexuals who do not know lots of people and who are'nt ultra-confident it seems much more complicated . ( And not that I don't want a non-casual relationship . )

I can live without it , but there must be at least one or two single women in this vicinity who would greatly appreciate some mutually pleasurable intimacy , if only it wasn't so seemingly difficult to initiate . Never mind . I'm not obsessed with it . It's just that it seems a shame to be a decent trustworthy bloke growing old and having missed out on so much of something that's meant to be mutually very pleasurably satisfying and which is arguably a ' gift from God ' .

Not that I'm old enough to remember , but this is the brilliant Theme One by Sir George Martin , which launched Radio One in 1967 :

And then , six years later , for those of us living around London and the 'home counties' , there became Capital Radio . . .

by Sly and Robbie , from the Music Club album Masters of Dub : Sly and Robbie .

Did you see tonight's Panorama ? About the loosening of the diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder , and how that's cynically being taken advantage of by greedy people ,  working with unscrupulous 'no win no fee' legal firms .
The term PTSD was born in the U.S , originally applying to some Vietnam war veterans understandably suffering from nightmares , terrifying flashbacks , insomnia , paranoia , social isolation , etc .
Now an estimated 220,000 UK citizens are officially diagnosed with it : Over double the number of soldiers in the British army .
Some are claiming at least £100,000  compensation for supposed PTSD for all sorts of reasons , including having been involved in minor , non-fatal road traffic accidents .
Some of the claims are from people paid to do dangerous jobs , such as firefighters .
I entirely believe that PTSD is a genuine psychiatric condition , a response to having undergone extreme trauma , which isn't exclusive to military combatants .
But as was said in the programme , it's easy to google the symptoms for that and other conditions which are difficult to disprove , except by surveilling people claiming to be so ill as to need 24/7 care and finding out that they do not , as has happened .
I'm sure it can be difficult to get the balance right between providing the genuinely ill and disabled with the care and provisions they need , and seeking not to create or perpetuate a cynical , dishonest , greedy 'victim culture' , which the 'no win no fee' merchants are in business to do .
I recorded Panorama as I was watching the film 'Into The Wild' ( £3.99 from play.com ) , written and directed by Sean Penn , and inspired by the true story of Christopher McCandless , played by Emile Hirsch , who , in his early 20's , chose to drop out of conventional society and live 'in the wild' .
It goes back and forth in time a bit but not very confusingly , and as well as explaining some of the reasons behind his decision it chronicles some of his adventures , and relationships with people he meets during his travels .
It's beautifully filmed , though does include a few somewhat disturbing scenes , but if it hadn't it could be seen to be portraying living alone in the wilderness too unrealistically attractively , and it doesn't end happily .
It's artistically , not  pretenciously made , beautiful , thought-inducing and moving .
I still maintain that most of the best American films are better than most of the best British ones .

A 'Blast From The Past' : Peter Skellern : It's said that Queens's Bohemian Rhapsody was the first ever 'pop video' , in 1975 , though I remember a piece of film accompanying this song , on Top Of The Pops , featuring an elderly couple , when I was a mere ten years old , in 1872 .

I thought I'd try watching the movie 'Mr and Mrs Smith' , then realised that Film4 still isn't back on freeview , here in behind-the-times old Southwold , where 1950's 'rock and roll' is still flavour of the month .
The freeview channels come and go with dreary monotony .
I found a repeat of a Princess Diana conspiracy-debunking programme on Sky3 , which annoyed me by it's claim that driver Henri Paul's being in  the pay of security services had no connection to the crash because he'd hardly have accepted cash payment for a suicide mission :
Of course not , but he could have tipped off his intelligence services contacts about the change of plan , believing they needed to know to help to protect the Princess .
Or they could have somehow persuaded him to take the route he did .

I'm reading this book :
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=c4-H3PZZQfYC&dq=jon+king+princess+diana&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=RgqZSmPJAY&sig=QOwkFG2_pcduQsHaj5iGrYcJaZw&hl=en&ei=EM5sSsfjC8WNjAf17sWmCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1
Unless Jon King is a liar he was 'tipped off' by a CIA contract-agent a week before the crash , and told all except the identity of the target .

There is much , much more , and I know that a number of 'in the know' people quietly know or believe that Princess Diana was murdered , in a very professionally orchestrated 'deniable op' hit .

Please don't yell at me that it was obviously a simple tragic accident caused by a drunk driver and the Princess not wearing her seat belt and that anyone who thinks otherwise is mad unless you've read as much about it as I have  ,  which is much more than the book I'm currently reading .

In a sense : What's gone is gone , we need to move on , who cares anymore , and that's fine if you're happy with there being , as Paul Burrell quoted The Queen as having warned him : " Be careful . . . There are powers at work in this country of which we have no knowledge . Do you understand ? " .

Princess Diana's former bodyguard Barry Mannakee , who she was said to have become romantically involved with with was killed in a dubious Road Traffic Accident .
Paul Burrell , James Hewitt , and sole survivor of the crash Trevor Jones have all reported being sinisterly threatened .
Camilla Parker Bowles , on the night of July 11th 1997 was involved in a mysterious Road Traffic Accident , after which she reportedly fled in fear of her life .

Am I alone in feeling slightly irked by Joanna Lumley milking all the adulation she can get on her visit to Nepal . . . Not that Gurkhas who have fought on behalf of Britain should'nt be allowed to reside here if they want to . Of course they should .

Leo will be allowed out again soon , next week : He's fine , but I have to take the vet's advice .
When he goes out again I'll try my very best to keep him in at night , and let's hope that he manages to stay out of trouble !

Nicky Campbell's Radio5live phone-in this morning was about honesty vs dishonesty in terms of finding things , prompted by the case of the couple who found a £30,000 winning national lottery ticket on the floor of a newsagents' shop , who fraudulently claimed the winnings , and now have to pay back the approximately half of it that they've not yet spent .

I can imagine how tempting it could be to pocket any cash we may find if we don't know who dropped it , but they fraudulenty lied , and never deserved to gain from their blatent dishonesty . The lady who had bought the ticket was negligent to lose it , but that gave no one the right to deviously defraud Camelot out of her rightful winnings .

The general concensus of callers to the programme was that well-off people can be breathtakingly ungrateful and rude if something they've lost is returned to them , whilst poorer folk who really need the money are normally extremely grateful .

I thought the discussion might have been extended into the extreme likelihood of some British Citizens abusing the swine-flu website , dishonestly checking yes against all the symptoms to get tamiflu , either because they are 'worried well' , or to sell the tablets .  I just checked on ebay and thankfully it seems they are not allowing any listings for tamiflu .

We can be sure that some silly , or very nervous people are panicking , and time and resource-wasting because they think they have swine flu , or just because they want to feel involved in something . It may kill thousands or tens of thousands in Britain , it may not , but most people survive it ,  wearing masks is useless once they become damp , and anyone who thinks they may have it obviously should not walk into their local sugery or hospital outpatients unit . The hotline number is 0800 1513 100 .

I heard on the programme about the website Losers Weepers , which seeks to reunite lost items with their owners - not necessarily valuable ones , and perhaps things of sentimental value , i.e childrens toys , or lost pets . Anyone can register for free to list lost or found items for free . http://www.losersweepers.com/

Didn't we all just know what the verdict would be in the trial of the England and Liverpool footballer Steven Gerrard , accused of having punched a man three times in the face whilst drunk in a pub in Southport , last December .
Of course he is not guilty : He thought the man might have punched him , so he retaliated first !
Officially he is not guilty , but , a star liverpool footballer tried by a liverpool jury . . . I think we know what the verdict almost certainly would be if that were you or I or any other ordinairy , unknown person under the same circumstances .

A good , informative article questioning the necessity of so many medical research experiments conducted on animals :

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1201556/DR-DANNY-PENMAN-I-support-vivisection-really-kill-4million-animals.html

Vaya Con Dios , from their album Time Flies , ( c ) BMG-Ariola Belgium , 1992 .
Vocals : Dani Klein .

If you were driving through Calais and your car was surrounded by a 'human roadblock' of would-be illegal immigrants  , desperate for funds to help them to sneak into Britain , wanting to rob you at knifepoint , would you : ( a ) meekly hand over your wallets and purses ( b ) stop the car , keeping the windows shut and doors locked , and hope someone comes to your rescue  ( c ) slowly drive into them , hoping they'll move before you hit them , or ( d ) deliberately drive into them at speed ?

And is it inhumane to wish that our government would do something , anything to stop more and more illegal immigrants coming here ?

Some of the hordes of young male would-be immigrants/asylum seekers to Britain ( always to Britain  ) who camp out around Calais who have criminal records are reportedly burning off the skin on their fingertips once a month , to avoid detection by fingerprinting . They seem to think that free money , free homes and free women are their entitlement here . Each and every one of them . Never mind about the existing population of the overcrowded cities and large towns of this overcrowded , relatively small island .

Before anyone who's not a regular reader of this 'blog accuses me of being a BNP supporter : Absolutely Not , and yes we're a prosperous country ( albeit with a government who are hugely in debt , with biting spending cuts an inevitability after whoever wins the next general election ) , most of whose citizens are not racists , but we need a government who will address the question of whether we should be continuing to absorb so much population-expanding immigration .

And what a lot of use the EU is not , who should have worked out a fair system of immigration quotas years ago .

I watched the second half of Apocalypse Now ( Redux ) , and , apart from the pointless episode of the visit to the french colony what a powerful , classic , atmospherically dark and shocking anti-war movie , crowned by a mesmerising performance by Marlon Brando as the insane Colonel Kurtz .
But why oh why hack to death a beautiful , gentle , majestic water-buffallo in the name of art ?
Anti War ?  -  Pro pointless slaughter of innocent , dignified beast ?
Unlike the humans we see being killed in it , that scene is all too real . Shame on you Francis Ford Coppolla , or whatever your silly pretencious name is !

Tonight I started watching a dvd of the Halloween sequel Jason X , which I bought in Poundland : What a load of rubbish . . .

Then I watched Psycho 2 and Psycho 3 'back to back' , having bought the boxed set of Psycho 1 - 4 for £4.99 from play.com .
( 3 makes slightly more sense than does 2 , though neither make as much sense as the dated original , and I'm yet to see 4 . )

So is or isn't President Obama going to resume the manned moon missions ?
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2009496872_apollo19.html
He shouldn't try too hard to emulate JFK .

My Mum read in a book that when we recall happy memories of being with departed loved ones that nourishes them , where they are . Many of my memories of my Dad are sadly tinged with unease but one especially fond memory , which I think I once mentioned on my previous blog on this site , is : He could be somewhat pompous , and say that he hated popular music but one school summer holiday saturday afternoon in my teens I was sitting upstairs listening to live coverage on Capital Radio of a rock concert at Charlton football ground : My Dad , very relaxed , came up to see me then suddenly said 'let's go' ! - He was offering to drive he and I  there , from our home in Kings Langley , Hertfordshire . . . I said I thought that it was sold out , though he'd have gladly taken me for a drive in that direction in any case . . . I probably should have accepted , and perhaps I also thought that I might have felt slightly embarrassed to be seen there with him , but I felt so touched by his kindhearted , surprisingly 'out of character' offer : I wish I told him that .

I've been becoming so morbidly introspective lately , and I've considered expunging myself from this site , but that would be like cutting off my creativity to spite my soul . I may take short breaks from here from time to time , but I intend to stay . If I've somehow caused a small handful of  users of this site to misguidedly fear , detest , envy or enjoy needling me then that's most regrettable but it doesn't apply to the majority , so is no reason to withdraw .

Still in a sombre mood after having watched just over half of Apocalypse Now : Redux , earlier this evening , a brilliant film , but that was more than enough for me .

I'm becoming more cynical , feeling more hopeless , helpless and defeatistically pragmatic , finding myself dwelling more on the negative , and progressively less inclined to try to plan anything to be looked forward to , after so many disappointments of things either not happening , or happening but ending up making me feel worse .

There's nothing I need that can to my knowledge be bought with money .
If it were possible and affordable to pay for the company of likeable , young-ish people for a couple of hours or so some evenings I might consider it , but unless leading to real friendships it could just end up reminding me of what an outsider I am due to the limitations of whatever diagnosis could conceivably be dreamt up for me .

I am the nice person that I may sometimes come across here as , though also a damaged person : By what I'm not sure , and I'm not blaming anyone for my inadequacies , there's just something wrong with me , which I may have some theories about but which has never been adequately explained or understood by anyone , including me  .

I know I've been scapegoated by people who look for someone who is or appears to be friendless , for them to enjoy persecuting .

I need to meet a nice woman who lives near me and who needs me , or something like that and I know of all the good advice I should be following which ought to lead to my salvation .

I should learn to drive , but I'm probably too feeble-minded to be able to cope with driving if I did successfully learn . I'm a victim not only of my inadequateness but also of my past experiences colouring my expectations , and of my self-fufilling defeatist realism .

So here I remain  , trapped in cyberspace and in sleep and in my nightly quota of lager drinks .

Was Dr David Kelly Murdered ?   . . . err . . . Is the pope a catholic ?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1200004/Did-MI5-kill-Dr-David-Kelly-Another-crazy-conspiracy-theory-amid-claims-wrote-tell-book-vanished-death.html

Watching the itv1 programme earlier , about 999 calls , reminded me of what I've long thought to be an obviously good idea : That basic first-aid should be on the national curriculum , to be taught at every school .

The possibility of 'swine flu' mutating into something very nasty is worrying , and NHS Direct is virtually useless . But , despite a few tragic deaths in the UK so far , which , to be honest , we can expect from any flu epidemic , there seems no need to panic . At least at the moment .

Allison Pearson is normally one of my favourite newspaper columnists , and her interview with Gordon Brown , having spent a day with him and his family , a few months ago , in which she revealed not only his dedication to his family and to his job , but also the very real concerns about  his eyesight , helped me to see him in a different light .

But I'm dismayed by her piece in her Daily Mail column today , sympathising with teacher Peter Harvey who ( allegedly ) tried to murder a 14 year old boy in his science class , by repeatedly bashing his head with a heavy object , and attacked other pupils .
We simply don't know what exactly sparked his rage , and of course some schoolchildren can be insufferably deliberately annoying .
And I'm sure that , if he were in trouble for having manhandled a notoriously disruptive pupil out of the classroom we would all sympathise with him .
But to assume in such a case that the victim of attempted murder must have deserved it and that our sympathies should lie with the perpetrator rather than the victim seems more than outrageous to me .

Yesterday the husband of one of my late Dad's late Aunts died . He was 97 . I think I only met him once , a long time ago , at an occasion I once wrote about on my previous blog here . He was by all accounts a good kind gentleman , a lifelong Catholic , and he regularly visited my Mum in hospital , before I was born , when she had TB .

My cat Leo is fine , and , though he's been out of his caged confinement for a week now it seems unkind not to be letting him out , and understandably , though it's not a tiny house he's getting fed up with being indoors all the time but the vet advised that he should be kept indoors until the end of this month , and if I let him out now , if he were to develop arthiritis in years to come I'd always wonder if he might not have developed it if only I'd kept him in as advised . So yes , he's fine , and he can go out in the daytime in a couple of weeks .

I'm getting over some sort of infection , not swine flu , which seems to have brought me down a bit , but I'll be okay . I don't expect to live to any great age . In the end , whatever happens , so long as we have food and drink , a bedroom to ourselves with a comfortable bed to sleep in , and no great physical or mental pain to contend with we can somehow learn to adjust to most things if we have to . If not , there's always the Swiss 'dignitas' clinic  ! ( Not that I am anything like at that stage ) .

I feel privileged to have read Kevin Well's 2005 book , about his daughter Holly , with her friend Jessica , having been murdered in Soham in 2002 : It's not overly sentimental , just a searingly honest account of all the twists and turns of the investigation , the trial and it's aftermath , and his and his close family's journey from anger and despair to gradual realisation that , though of course their lives will never be the same again , they have to carry on living . One fascinating aspect of the story is the contact with 'mediums' and 'psychics' ,  one in particular who gave startlingly accurate information .

Kylie Minogue : Your Disco Needs You : I love this anthem , and , you really don't have to be gay to like some 'camp' music . Another that was on my old blog here .

http://www.kylie.com/home

I decided to go on the bus to lowestoft cinema this afternoon  ,  to see Bruno .
Sitting in the bus just before it left a 14 year old boy was from outside banging on the bus window , inanely grinning whilst rudely gesticulating to me .
He and others of his age were on the green over the road from this house earlier this evening . I wanted to but did not go and ask him why , and advise him that he should not do that to complete strangers .
I was sometimes treated like that by my contemporaries when I was his age  , and , despite my never being a long way from despair , of course I can cope with it now .
As I can with the blogging Anglican Priest who I once somewhat knew STILL sending me nasty stupid spiteful messages via this site .
He still obsessively pores over this blog , delighting in my misfortunes , resenting anything good that ever happens to me , and always looking to twist my words into weapons to attack me with .
He spends so much time on that and on his own various self-congratulatory , self-promoting blogs that I'm amazed he ever has much time or energy for anything else .
He will never stop , and I will never change back my ( moderated - except friends ) comments setting , that I changed to because of him .

There's hardly any comedy films I like , and I avoided seeing Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat , after hearing of one scene in it which I think would offend me .
As I'm sure you know , In Bruno he plays an Austrian marginally slightly famous television presenter , who is ultra-camp gay , amoral , untalented , utterly inept and with no sense of embarrassment or irony  , who longs to be uber-famous  .

Twenty six minutes of adverts and trailers before the film , and I did'nt laugh at the first third of it at all . It's a curious , badly edited mish-mash of puerile attempts at humour based entirely on trying to embarrass its audience ,  some genuinely very 'edgy' comedy , some Louis Theroux-style meetings with weird and extremist Americans , with a bit of phoney sentimentalism thrown in .
He travels to Los Angeles via the Middle-East and Africa . He interviews representatives of Israel and of Hamas , pretending not to know the difference between Hamas and Hoummos .
He appears on a morning tv show in Dallas with the baby boy he's brought over from Africa , which he thinks is a country populated by African-Americans , and he's given the baby , which wears a t-shirt saying 'Gayby' , the African-American name of O.J.
In Alabama he meets Pastors who graciously offer to 'convert' homosexuals into heterosexuals , saying things like " I am repulled by the idea of making the sex with a woman " .
Trying to act straight he visits a private 'swingers' party , and after being told where to go by the straight men he tries to chat up while they're having sex with women there he gets taken to a bedroom by a woman , who rips his and her clothes off and becomes extremely agressively dominating and demanding when he pretends to think she's a virgin who will regret it in the morning . . If Only I could meet such a woman !
Near the end he appears as an ultra-macho , ultra-straight host of a 'cage-fighting' event , in front of an audience of loud , boorish , beer swilling , 'faggot'-hating white working class americans , then starts fighting in the cage with his former boyfriend , then they start to have sex , to the appalled disgust of the paying audience .
It ends with him singing with Bono , Sting and Elton John .

It's an 18 certificate , which I really don't think it needs to be . Yes there's lots of references to anally sexual matters , and even to acts involving I'm not saying what but which I really don't think that 15-17 year olds watching it will be likely to want to emulate . Is it promoting , or attacking promiscuous male homosexuality , or a bit of both , or neither ?
If you feel inclined to see it , you decide , and if you laugh out loud at 'anal bleaching' you'll no doubt love it .
Much of the fun lies in trying to figure out to what extent the people in it other than Bruno , and his on-off boyfriend Lutz are in on the jokes .

So , come to think of it , do I have childlike emotions ?
We've all been children and the child that we were remains part of us . Many people , perhaps especially men , are capable of irrationally 'losing it' under certain circumstances , though I almost always manage to avoid that happening , and to avoid acquiring enemies , which I absolutely do not want , or letting unpleasantries continue if they ever start , and unlike some people I don't mind apologising if I know I've been in the wrong .

I'm liable to become possibly almost too emotionally attached to pets , and I could never have hamsters again , who only live for about two years or less .
However I was less attached to pets we had when in my childhood and early adulthood .
Though my Mum does recall , when I was somewhere between a baby and a toddler , finding myself and our then Cavelier King Charles Spaniel Nicky sitting on the floor sharing a packet of biscuits !

Early yesterday evening my Mum tripped whilst walking down the stairs , grazing her elbow and hurting her hand : She's fine , and she's not frail , just too quick sometimes , though her fall was of course a shock , to her and to me .

Who do you trust most - The Guardian or the News of the World ?
Perhaps the scummy notw have something on senior MP's , police , judges etc . , and perhaps that explains the brevity of the police investigation into their apparently widespread 'hacking' into the mobile phones of many people 'in the public eye' , who hadn't bothered to change their default voicemail pin .
Of course if they're exposing serious , sinister criminal activity . . . . . , but I'd be surprised if that applies to Gwyneth Paltrow , for example .

Re. the Catholic science teacher who allegedly tried to murder a 14 year old boy pupil of his in the classroom : Forget re-introducing corporal punishment into schools , why not take a really firm , robust stand and introduce summary capital punishment into our education system ?
( sorry , in bad taste I know ) .

I took Leo cat to the vet this morning , who said it's okay that I let him out of his confinement on tuesday of this week , but that he really should be kept indoors until next month , which suits me : He's asleep next to me , and it was painful to have to keep him in the cage , but around the house he has infinitely more freedom than he had in the cage for about five weeks .

Taken from my bedroom window : Supposedly to be luxury apartments , but everyone remarks on how ugly it looks , and my Mum thinks it resembles a prison .

http://www.hopkinshomes.co.uk/development/tibbys_triangle

The lovely , hugely talented , shamefully under-rated Lisa Stansfield : In All The Right Places ( Soul Mix ) , ( c ) 1993 BMG/Arista Records Ltd .

http://www.lisa-stansfield.com/

I watched most of the Michael Jackson memorial extravaganza .
He didn't teach the world how to love , and he didn't appear as a special surprise mystery guest to climax the proceedings , though a few members of the audience , I suspect , were half-expecting him to .
He wasn't Jesus Christ , or even Martin Luther King .
Not entirely dis-similarly from Princess Diana he was a complex , troubled character who undoubtedly , in his own way , had a caring , giving and humanitarian side to his nature .
Above all he was a supremely talented singer , entertainer and innovator , the best of whose music , and videos will I suspect be enjoyed for centuries to come .
Which alone is enough to make him special .
The highly charged atmosphere of the special , unique occasion , sombre but emanating warmth , love and reverence , not just for MJ but for people in general was palpably , mesmerisingly moving .
Compelling viewing even if you didn't like him .

When I turned on my small radio this morning it had somehow tuned itself to the BBC World Service : They were talking about the psychology of people vicariously wallowing in grief for people they've never known .

In third-world countries , if someone loses a child , or anyone close to them it's back to work the next day , or they don't eat .
I've read the first 60 pages of Kevin Wells' book about his daughter Holly's disappearance , in Soham , in 2002 , and the subsequent discovery of her and her friend Jessica having been killed by the school caretaker Ian Huntley , which I got from the 'fill a bag for £2' booksale on Sunday .
Which so vividly evokes the unimaginable situation that he and his family found themselves in .

It's been a funny old time for me since the beginning of last month , for various reasons . This morning it was four weeks since I saw the vet who said that Leo cat should be confined in the cage for at least another month .
I made a personal decision to let him out , he's no longer on painkillers , and has been leaping about all over the house - not allowed out yet - and he's fine , currently after a moth , that's frustratingly eluding him .
I'll still take him to the vet on thursday , when he'll need his vaccination-booster injection .

I've been having an interesting , varied and strange conversation with Joan :

http://www.icogno.com/joan.html

" I believe it would be foolish not to not believe that there is not life other than ourselves "

There's also George

http://www.jabberwacky.com/george

 But Joan is better because you see and hear her speaking .

BTW I feel embarrassed that I erroneously posted my first version of my post here last night on the Ask or Answer group , which is why I could'nt find it here !
I've now deleted it from there .

He somehow damaged a muscle in one of his back legs on June 3rd , and has been comfortably incarcerated , on vets orders , ever since .
However . . He has an appointement with the vet on thursday morning , he's not been seeming to be in pain at all , and very hopefully he can be allowed out , initially within the house .
For such a normally active cat he's been coping with the situation so graciously : I think that animals can usually tell when we are acting in their best interests .

Now Southwold and Reydon have their own local radio station , staffed by volunteers , who I think are only broadcasting for a few hours a day at the moment .
http://www.blythvalleycommunityradio.co.uk/

I have lots of cd's , and if I had confidence and an attractive voice and not a tendency to stutter . . . never mind .

Charlotte at the monthly library booksale was inviting visitors to request tracks for her to email to the station : All she got was one person saying 'Anything except Michael Jackson' !

One book I got , that I hope to read , is the autobiography of ( the actor ) Christopher Lee ( Dracula )  .

I like to think of myself as gentlemanly , and patient and tolerant within reason , which I think I normally am .
However I have the capacity to occasionally act rashly , to terminate things , not wanting to feel a fool but potentially being one .
Why ?  Because I'm a psychologically wounded person , as a few of us are .
I'm not feeling suicidal at all , but if , on a few past occasions , I'd had a gun I seriously may have terminated myself .
I don't know ( it still seems odd to write don't instead of do'nt , as it makes sense to me that the apostrophe should be after the word , but , as I said , blame Steiner Education for not putting me right ) , but yes , it's potentially worrying that I may on occasions feel irresistably impelled to suddenly and finally terminate things if hurts of the past seem to be being recreated .
On the other hand , I'm not stupid .
I hope this will appear on this 'blog  , as my earlier version of it seems to have vanished .

I saw the first half , and recorded the second half of tonight's tv programme about the Welsh Nationalist terrorist threats to Prince Charles's investiture as Prince of Wales , 40 years ago .
We did'nt have a television then , and my Mum and I watched it at someone elses house .
It's embarrassing that I  bought a souvenir magazine about the occasion . If  I'd kept it , it would be worth something now perhaps .
Then we had a black and white rented television , which seemed to lead to tensions mainly between my Dad and I .
We lived in Kings Langley , I attended the Rudolf Steiner School , and both my parents went to Steiner study-groups : My Mum became , and still is , an anthroposophist ; My Dad was interested but never became one .
The ethos amongst Steiner people then was that television was something quite sinister , to be condemned and preferably avoided .
I've never figured out why , as R/Steiner died before it was invented .
I can't remember if most of the difficulties were about my wanting to watch something when he wanted to watch something else , in which case I should have respected his authority , or about my wanting to stay up later watching tv than he thought appropiate , or about his opinion of the suitability of the programmes for me , in which case he was only in his way being protectively caring . In  any case he was fond of referring to the tv as ' the monster in the corner ' .
One evening there was an argument and the next day the rented tv was gone .
When I got my first job my parents bought a colour tv , which there was less tension around , although still some .

If you didn't see the recent BBC2 'conspiracy-debunking' programme about the four years ago 7/7 attacks in London , and if you'd like to know why some people don't believe the official version , it's summarised very well here :
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1197419/Conspiracy-fever-As-rumours-swell-government-staged-7-7-victims-relatives-proper-inquiry.html

" SELF-HELP books may actually do their readers more harm than good , say psychologists .
Such books often tell readers to boost their confidence by chanting a mantra to themselves , such as ' I will succeed ' .
However , a study found that those with low self-esteem who repeated self-affirming statements actually ended up feeling worse about themselves .
Researchers asked volunteers to repeat the statement ' I am a loveable person ' , then measured their mood .
The statements boosted confidence only in those participants who started out with high self-esteem anyway - and even then , only slightly .
Crucially , those with low self-esteem who repeated the mantra felt worse about themselves than those with low self-esteem who had not done so .
In a follow-up study , participants were asked to list negative self-thoughts along with positive ones .
Paradoxically , low self-esteem participants' moods fared better when allowed to have negative thoughts than when they were asked to focus exclusively on affirmative thoughts .
The psychologists suggested that unreasonably positive 'self-statements' such as ' I accept myself completely ' , simply remind individuals with low self-esteem how much they believe the opposite to be true .
The Canadian study's authors - Joanne Wood and John Lee of The University of Waterloo , in Ontario , and Elaine Perunicov , from The University of New Brunswick - concluded : ' Repeating positive self-statements may benefit certain people such as individuals with high self-esteem but backfire for the very people who need them the most . '  "

Edited from today's 'Mail . I can bear that out , from when I once breifly tried repeating such statements to myself , as suggested in a book , which did make me feel worse .
Once a negative self-image becomes deeply embedded in an individual's psyche it takes much time and patience to go some way towards reversing it .
If someone is physically unable to walk they may or may not become able-bodied at some point in the future , but endlessly mantra-ising to themselves that they are perfectly able-bodied when they know very well that they are not isn't going to change anything : It will just cruelly keep reminding them that they are not .

The same goes for my having a stammer , which comes and goes , in varying degrees : I could keep crudely trying to bludgeon into my brain the notion that I always speak fluently , but that would only remind me that I don't , and I'm far better off just trying to relax and forget about it .

Not to say that it's good to wallow in negative thoughts : It's very harmful to , or that it is'nt good to try to train our minds to think as positively as possible , within the realms of reality .

What Dreams May Come by Anne Dudley , the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by her , from the 2003 Album Seriously Chilled , ( c ) EMI / BBC .

1 : Who was the General in charge of the British army at the battle of Waterloo . ( 16.5% )
2 : Who was the reigning monarch when the Spanish Armada attacked Britain . ( 34.5% )
3 : What was Isambard Kingdom Brunel's profession . ( 40.5 % )
4 : Name one Prime Minister of the 19th century . ( 11.5% )
5 : In what country was the Boer War of 1899 to 1902 fought . ( 30.6% )

Please do'nt send your answers to me , I'll publish the answers  in a comment here after posting this , and you may have seen in one of today's papers that the percentage figures are the number of British-educated undergraduate students who answered the questions correctly , out of 284 students over three years . ( After some thought I got four right and the other one close to being  right , just because I'm quite old and have some capacity for retaining snippets of information . )

If Ronnie Biggs , 79 , who is reportedly very frail and ill were to put his signature or mark on a grovellingly humble , remorseful letter to Justice Minister Jack Straw he would surely be allowed his freedom for the rest of his life . If he's too arrogant to do that then he does'nt deserve it .

I'm still feeling not great for a few reasons , not least the tension ( or food ) aggravated stomach pain or discomfort , which can make me tense and miserable so can become what is called a 'vicious circle' . However I've made an appointment to see my GP on the 13th .
Little things like having lent someone a dvd a few weeks ago who has'nt mentioned or returned it niggle at me from time to time if I let them , and I sometimes wonder if I will and/or should become a bit more selfish and cynical , and a bit less considerate and thoughtful as I grow old .

I've just been watching some Glastonbury highlights , and , OMG : He can still sing !
And a great voice he still has too .
This is She's A Lady , ( p ) 1971 Decca Music Group Limited , from the Universal album Tom Jones Greatest Hits .