The hundred and fortyeighth week of the pandemic

The weather has got really miserable lately, so there was little chance for going out, even as far as the garden. I suppose, global warming gave us a mild winter so far, which is OK with today's expensive fuel prices, but for outdoor activity it's pretty bad. Should it be a proper winter with below zero temperatures, we would have had a thick snow fall and a beautiful bright white countryside by now. As it is, we had to spend our time mostly indoors, doing paperwork, on the computer and watching TV.

Netflix came into its own this week. As I have never seen The Da Vinci Code and when I also came across Angels and Demons, I set about watching both. Unfortunately I was doing that backwards, so Angels and Demons came first, followed by the first one. I liked the second one much better, even though I don't normally take to these mystical bits of nonsense that these pictures have used to maintain their popularity. I suppose the fact that I love Tom Hanks, helped.

Roger Royer playing Lautrec

I also found, much to my delight, Lautrec, a Palme d'Or winning film from 1998. Excellent portrayal of a complicated genius, with excellent story line, brilliant acting and photography. I have seen the movie The Two Popes with Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins when it first came out. However, Netflix has always had it, and currently it is very relevant, as Pope Benedict has just died. I thoroughly enjoyed it again, and I am sure that some detail has only come to my attention this time round.

Max Thieriot in Fire Country

My US series have just returned after the Christmas break, so I could watch them with my VPN. So S.W.A.T., Fire Country, Blue Bloods, CSI Vegas, FBI, FBI International, FBI Most Wanted, East New York, NCIS, NCIS Los Angeles and NCIS Hawai'i are back to stop me getting bored on rainy days. Call the Midwife on BBC is also back, so I am never bored nowadays.

Talking of boredom, the great Windsor drama carries on, and to be honest, I was expecting myself to get bored with it pretty much, but that has not happened. Somehow I find that in spite of being a Marxist and a fervent anti-royalist, I love following all the hassle within the royal family. I treat it as a farce and entertainment, as well as having an element of sympathy for Harry. I have watched the ITV interview, but have not yet got round to watching the 60 minutes one with Anderson Cooper or The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The latter ought to be good, as Colbert is funny, sharp and he has a clever way of being anti-monarchy without offending.

Harry, the through and through Spencer

We came into BP on Sunday, as Stephen was due to arrive on Monday evening. He is having a gig at a comedy club in BP and it is always nice to see him, even though he lives at a hundred miles an hour and we don't get to spend too much time with him on his whistle stop visits like this one. The weather being lousy, we didn't go to meet him en route in from the airport, but he now knows the city pretty well, so he caught the 100E airport bus, plus and the 74 trolley bus to our house. The risks involved in navigating purely with the help of a GPS bit him on the bum a bit, when it stopped updating and he got a bit lost. He appeared soon though, albeit looking like a wet poodle.

Stephen at the Hot Paprika Comedy club

We decided not to attend the gig, which was a hard decision, as we love his humour and we don't get to see him too often. However, both of us are getting a bit old to be out at night, especially in such bad weather, and as for myself, I fall into bed so early most nights, that I didn't want to disgrace the family by dropping off to sleep in the middle of it. Especially, that he told us that he is the last act to go on, so we would have been out quite late. I do hope his old habit of having his performances videoed returns soon, as I would so much like to see him perform.

Stephen on stage about a year ago

He is off home this evening, as his life is pretty hectic, especially that he has to prepare for a 5-week long tour of down under fairly soon. We should go home probably tomorrow, or the day after. I have to go and have a blood test done early tomorrow morning and we can, if we want to, leave after that. All depends on the weather, I suppose, we'll see how it goes. For us, the one thing to look forward for the rest of the week is a visit to Heino and Manet on Sunday. They have arrived a week ago, but we haven't seen them yet. Heino's cooking is definitely something to look forward to and we always like to chat to them after a long absence, or even after a short one.

Next post, hopefully, next week.