Goodbye Theresa May...

In a spooky moment of synchronisity with major political events in the UK, our robot vacuum cleaner, which we named Theresa May, also stopped working last Friday just before midday. 

I always had very little faith in the politician, Theresa May. But I am slightly annoyed at the robot cleaner, Theresa May, as it was quite pricey and I expected some degree of competence that it has not delivered. 

On the plus side, however, the robot cleaner has not done the following:

Endorsed an unnecessarily brutal austerity drive that have viciously attacked the poorest and most vulnerable members of society.

Created a hostile environment that has seen British citizens and their families deported.

Overseen a rise in child poverty that would shame the Victorians.

Endorsed economic policies that have seen the richest 1000 people in the country grow their wealth by £50billion.

And that's before discussing the ongoing tragedy of Grenfell, the disgraceful treatment of the disabled and the limp-cock-shambles that is her attempt to resolve Brexit. I could go on...

But, in conclusion, a broken vacuum cleaner is better than the UK Prime Minister because it has at least worked some of the time.

Other Woman News...

The Other Woman has just been promoted to Second Dan at Hapkido. 

She's trained in this Korean martial art for 13 years and she's come through a badly broken arm to reach this latest stage in her journey. I thought the grading where she was presented with her belt would be quite moving and I did feel a few teary moments. But it also just seemed right that she was getting a thing she's consistently worked for. I was dead chuffed for her. 

Even better, though, was a story involving the Other Woman appearing on a radio show where she was being interviewed in a pre-record and she was asked a question off-script. 

Asked about what the kindest thing she'd ever done involved, she honestly said that she once shared a chocolate bar with a friend. If you know the Other Woman and her obsessive love of all things chocolate, you'd fully understand that this registers as high as charitable giving and being a blood donor on her scale of random kind acts. 

But realising that this made her sound like the embodiment of selfishness, she then panicked and added 'Oh! But I do try to approach every day with a smile!' 

This is perhaps the greatest lie my beautiful but acid-tongued friend has ever told. It kept me and several other mutual friends amused for the rest of the evening.

So I may now have to bow to my best friend as she is a senior belt. But I will also keep myself entertained by doing so with a massive smile. Because I like to approach every bow to my Other Woman with a smile. I may even buy her a Little Miss Sunshine t-shirt. 

A Content Consumer Recommends...

Here are some things I am watching, reading or listening to at the moment that I think are very good. You may agree, disagree or not care. All of those are fine.

Films

Hellboy: Neil Marshall (The Descent and Dog Soldiers) takes over the directorial reins from dark magical fairytale master Guillermo del Toro to create a more wise-cracking and gory reboot. David Harbour is in decent form under the red make-up and prosthetics worn by Ron Perlman in the previous two outings. Milla Jovovic as the bad queen is basically walking the script. Ian McShane takes the John Hurt role. Not entirely convinced by this offering but I also didn’t hate it. 

The Ritual: A horror movie that seems to borrow lots from The Descent in that it’s about a group of friends who lose one of their number in a grim incident, then head off to the wilds to grieve and reconnect. Instead of an underground cave system in North Carolina, it’s the Scandinavian wilderness. Instead of a family of blind underground flesh-eaters, it’s part-animal and part-god creature from Norse mythology. Rafe Spall is watchable as the unlikeable arsehole who helps lead his pals into this mess.  

Music

The Unthanks: Unaccompanied as We Are: Folk singing sisters Rachel and Becky Unthank are joined by fiddle player and vocalist Niopha Keegan on a nationwide tour. The deal: no musical instruments and just the voices of the trio. Me and the Missus saw them at the Union Chapel in London and it was pared-down vocal sorcery as they covered a wide range of their own and other people’s material. It was haunting, wonderful and truly uplifting. The tour continues and tickets are still on sale here.

TV

Derry Girls: The second series of Lisa McGee’s immensely touching and laugh-out-loud sitcom about four Irish schoolgirls and their English pal is amazingly good. It’s a real ensemble piece loaded with pitch-perfect performances. I adore Siobhan McSweeney as no-shit Sister Michael and Tommy Tiernan’s beleaguered dad, Gerry. Ian McElhinney’s Granda Joe is also a wonderful and terrifying creation.

Back to Life: A truly beautiful comedy-drama written by Daisy Haggard and Laura Solon, which follows a recently released convict (Haggard) coming back to her home town. Hated by her local community and loved by her ageing parents, she faces various traumas as the audience gradually learns why she went to jail in the first place. Haggard is amazing and shows real depth as central character Miri, while Geraldine James and Richard Durden are fantastic as Miri's worried mum and dad. Adeel Akhtar nearly steals the show with a brilliantly understated performance as next-door neighbour Billy. The delicate pacing and cinematography filming the Kent coast deserve a mention, too.

Avengers: Endgame: A Short Review...

I am a huge comics fan and I thought Avengers: Infinity War was an amazing superhero blockbuster with surprising emotional impact. 

In fact, lots of films in the Marvel Comics Universe have been excellent. The Iron Man trilogy and the Guardians of the Galaxy movies were great fun, Black Panther and Thor: Ragnorok were astonishingly slick entertainment, and Captain America: Winter Soldier was intelligent and gripping. For my money, the latter was probably the best of the lot, too. 

Of course, I'll never forgive the studio for the abomination that was the 2003 Daredevil film. That remains such a painful experience that it has almost been expunged from my memory. The fabulous bits of the three Daredevil Netflix TV series did help heal that particular wound, though. 

But back to Avengers Endgame. I wanted this film to be really good. But I also wanted to be a handsome and competent lover and that never materialised either. 

In brief, and without revealing any major spoilers, I felt a bit let down by it all. It's not that it isn't very good. In parts it absolutely is. And some of the parts are really smart and really entertaining. But it's too many tiny bits and aren't-we-clever moments and I'm not convinced they all combine to create a dynamic enough whole. 

The plot felt a bit like an extended episode of Scooby-Doo where all the gang come together, thanks to a bizarre sequence of events, to kick off a rescue mission. And Thanos would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those pesky super-powered kids!

There is emotional involvement in it. There are a couple of sacrifice moments and a couple of cool bits of character development. It also rewards viewers who are familiar with all the previous Marvel films. But it also relies on that knowledge a bit too much and there's a lot of plot exposition to explain what the Scooby gang have to do to undo the Thanos 'snap'. 

There are lots of bits where it feels the movie's creators are slapping themselves on the back a little too much. One glaring moment of this occurs in a massive battle scene where the studio has a moment where it almost acknowledges how great it is at establishing strong female roles. I appreciate this is a callback to an earlier moment in another film but it also felt a bit shouty.

It's a real curate's egg of a movie for me. The script obviously had lots of work to do to resolve the narrative carnage that was created after Avengers: Infinity War. But it does succeed in doing that. Albeit in a bit of a sometimes clunky way. It does have emotional impact, too. And it lays some nice foundations for potential things to come.

Its key issue, though, is that Avengers: Infinity War created such massive high stakes that it could never match it for narrative tension. So it ends up feeling a little bit episodic and a bit too valedictory where all the key characters have their moments. 

On the plus side, and this is spoiler country, Howard the Duck does make a brief appearance and there's a fleeting mention for Captain Britain fans, too. 

I will still go see it again, though. And probably again...