pumpkinstrokemarrow

Day before yesterday, spent the evening with Jane Fonda at 'The China syndrome'. Quite fun to see a young Jane enacting in film her own life; that is to say a spiffing bimbo who wants to be something other than a bimbo and go in for serious issues. Like doing a big number on a near melt down in a nuclear power station run by ruthless capitalists. I seem to recall that there was a day when she was almost strung up for treason for manning a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft battery, but that all seems to have been put aside as she was allowed to make this film and is allowed to appear in commercials for various potions and activities to turn back the effects of time.

Reflected afterwards about the three staples of films from the US. First, corruption and cover-ups in high places, preferably in the Federal Government. This presumably draws on a libertarian, small government streak in the US psyche, a psyche which suits big-business just dandy. Second, architects. Not sure what drives this one. Why should film goers in the US be so keen on this branch of the creation industry? But they do pop up awfully often. Third, small and cuddly children who turn out to be possessed by the devil. Or something of the sort. I suppose this must be down to some deep inner conflict: on the one hand they are all for family, on the other they can't stand small children getting in the way of their life. So it's nice to be able to hate them vicariously, for a while, in the evening. But why should they be different from us, which I think they are, in this regard?

Yesterday, spent the evening with a much more worthy film called 'Water'. Brought to us by BBC4 as part of a world film series or something. I remember seeing some good films a year or so ago about Israel, or perhaps the Middle East more generally, under the same banner. Pity there is not more of them. This one was a costume drama about a sort of boarding house for widows in 1930's India, in Hindi with subtitles. Presumably all the hundreds of million of people in India who do not speak Hindi have to make do with subtitles, just like us. On the other hand, perhaps the non-Hindi speaking parts of India did not go in for the sort of thing portrayed.

Which was the horrid way widows were both created and treated, set in a doomed romance. Created in the sense that it seems that one could become a widow, and be condemned to be treated as such, as young as 8 or 9, perhaps without ever having met one's husband. Treated as such seemed to mean either jumping onto his pyre; possibly marrying his brother; or, going to live for the rest of one's natural life in a lower grade nunnery. The one in this film looked fairly unpleasant, with the younger women, again perhaps as young as 8 or 9, being rented out for the night to pay for the grub, most of which found its way into the chief widow. She also appeared to be into smoking some sort of illegal substance in a pipe.

Reflected afterwards that it was bad that widows were and perhaps are treated like this. But good that a film could be made about it by the perpetrators. Also that while European colonisers did plenty of bad things, they probably also tried their best to stamp out practises of this sort. European civilisation really did had something to offer. Us bleeding heart liberals who go soft at the knees talking about the destruction of other peoples' cultures should bear this in mind. Other peoples' cultures often have some rougher edges than our own.

Another common misconception concerns the solitary nature of domestic cats, derived from the solitary nature of most big cats. If Franklin is anything to go by this is a oversimplified formulation. Franklin is very keen on people and will go up to almost anyone in search of a bit of interest. And then there was the pannier incident of 24 February. It might all be a show put on to persuade us to provide some grub - he is looking rather thin again - but I think there might also be a liking for human company. He is quite happy to sit and watch while one tends the compost heap. But also true that he had a good sniff around the edges. And he was having a good sniff around the edges of the vegetable box in the garage the other day. Rather looked if he had clocked some mouse smell. So after all that, not sure after all. Is it just the grub they luv?

PS: a minor geekery. I had occasion to use Internet Explorer the other day, the first time for some time, having switched over to Chrome. And it managed to bring up some near porn. blog in no time at all. Something which Chrome very rarely does. Are the people at Google more family friendly than the people at Microsoft? I remember being rather shocked when on a visit to Microsoft at Reading at the under dressed, very young females portrayed in the advertising for Xbox or something. This from one of the Anglo countries obsessed with peddoes.