A busy day for white dog
It's a non-stop whirl in
white-dog-land. A visit to the doggy training facility. Then the vets
for a MOT and beauty treatment (well, nail trim). Walk. Brush. Coat
looking shiny and healthy. That's just the fun parts. There's the
serious issues, too. Like barking at the postman. Like keeping the
garden as free as possible from the menaces that lurk out there: the
foxes, squirrels, rats, and the larger birds.
Throw in a couple of light meals and
some power-naps, well, where has the day gone?
Southern Comfort
I read a (wrongly dismissive, I think)
review of Alien that described it as ten little Indians, in outer
space. Then there was one.
Southern Comfort might equally be
dismissed as ten little Indians in the Bayou. But the swamps are a
key part of the film, and so is Ry Cooder's soundtrack. Beautifully
photographed. Cautionary: lack of respect for nature and people can
have some nasty consequences.
A favourite line was, two national
guardsmen discussing a third who's unpredictable behaviour had caused
them no end of grief:
“So? He's mad? What'd'ya want me to
do? Cage him or kill him?”
“Either works for me.”
LA Confidential
The bad thing about insomnia is the
sleeplessness. Or is it that it leads to a tendency towards
flippancy? Probably the tiredness, low-level and nagging.
The upside is cultural. Book, music,
films, the arts don't care whether it's three in the afternoon or
three in the morning. So while I re-watched Southern Comfort this
morning, I also watched LA Confidential for the first time. In DVD
jacket blurb-speak, a stellar cast (this is meaningless to BLISS so
there's some clues in brackets): Russell Crowe (the gladiator in
Gladiator); James Cromwell (Babe's Dad in Babe); Kevin Spacey (with
then without the limp in The Usual Suspects, the serial killer in
Seven (help me out here) multiple parts in the airline adverts);
Danny DeVito (the shorter of the two in Twins?); Guy Pearce (Memento,
was in 'Neighbours' for Gods sake); Kim Bassinger, and a great James
Ellroy story, and period cars, clothes and music.
The waiting room and that looking at
your watch thing
I had a Dr's appointment this morning.
08:50. I arrived between 08:45 and 08:50, did a touchscreen book-in
and took a seat, determined beyond belief to just read The Yellow
Birds on the Kindle and wait patiently (heh! no pun intended) to be
called through. “Specifically” I lectured myself “no looking at
the watch in that exaggerated 'how much longer?' gesture”. By 08:52
that resolution was broken. They used to play classical music, and
that was fine because there's no words to interfere with reading, and
I like most of what they played. Due (no doubt) to populist
dumbing-down pressure, they now play pop, with stupid, inane words
interfering with trying to read, and you can't drown it out with the
mp3 player as you would elsewhere, as you're waiting to be called.
They should either do silent waiting
areas (no talking, no music, no televisions, no nothing) or accept
the fact that some of us (or me, anyway) want our own agenda in our
ears and replace being called with a visual alert. I'm sure, away
from medical establishments and the dreaded waiting areas, my blood
pressure's much lower.
No comments:
Post a Comment