Love and Liberty

My beloved husband and I lurched to the cinema this afternoon to see Doctor Strange – a ‘put the clocks back day’ treat (all right, birthday, too). Always a risk. Happily, Marvel’s latest won us both over.

A few thoughts why…




Capes! Clocks! Consequences! Characters! Cumberbatch!

Most of all, I’ve always loved psychedelia. This gives you all the spectacle you could wish for, from Sixties trippery to far-out realms to folding cities. It is, very much, my bag. Though for ideal Blu-ray play we’re going to need a bigger telly. Or four. Or six. And a big room to experience them in as they line every side.




I never read a lot of superheroes when I was younger. But I did like weird s**t, and fantasy, and capes. And much as I’ve enjoyed many of the Marvel movies, a bit of me’s thought at times, ‘Meh – they keep holding back on the costumes because they’re too afraid people will point and laugh. Never mind leather muscles. I like big flowing capes. I’ll never take you seriously until you put on your cape.’

At last, the main hero has a cape, and not just any cape, but a massive flowing cloak that has its own credit. Just seeing that in the trailer had me sold. Richard had to give me one of those looks when I pointed and shouted joyously, “Cape!”




Mads Mikkelsen. Ten years after Bond, still an outstanding villain. Still with a reason. Still problems with his eyes.

Decisions have consequences. Even time catches up with you.

Chiwetel Ejiofor. Compelling. I’ve only read the graphic novel A Nameless Land, A Timeless Time, but fabulous as that was, I wasn’t expecting Mordo to have a character, too…

Everyone’s a b*****d. Everyone’s got a brain. Both of these surprise and delight me.

Tilda Swinton. Translucent. I don’t mean her character, and another superb performance, but: just to look at her you can believe she’s ancient and yet not aged.

“From a certain point of view” has always seemed like a reason to turn someone on the path to the dark side.




Benedict Cumberbatch. Now with American growl. I came out of the cinema with the thought that it’s his reaction to a future he once thought averted (if you remember a story from about six years ago), now inescapable…

[Cumberbatch growl]
‘I’ve seen many terrible futures.
I’ve avoided many of those roles.
But it always ends at this moment.
I am a Doctor.
I am a Lord of Time.
And I am on lunchboxes.’
[/Cumberbatch growl]

Massive dinner consumed (thank you, beloved husband). Before we can manage cake, time to watch yesterday’s Class. Woo! Psychedelic titles! I’m in.

Labels: Class, Comics, Doctor Strange, Film, Marvel

The Pound collapsing. Marmite threatened. Inflation doubled. All that with years still to go before massive trade tariffs start really hurting ordinary people. The unelected new Prime Minister isn’t just throwing out Mr Cameron’s Conservatism – it’s a Great Repeal of every shred of Tory economic responsibility built from Mrs Thatcher’s Single Market and control of inflation.

What plans does Mrs May’s government have to make the Pound seem like it’s still worth anything? Now it’s already fallen to its lowest value since 1848 and with accelerating inflation about to slash all our cash?

Here are some EXCLUSIVE rival proposals.

• Unelected Prime Minister Theresa May wants to take Britain back to the 1950s. So rumours are she favours repealing decimalisation – because if the Pound has 240 pennies, that must mean it’ll have two and a half times the spending power, right?

• Unbelievable Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is said to have a much more flamboyant idea. Issue new banknotes on REALLY BIG pieces of paper so everyone can see the Pound is still huge (it’s just the economy that got small). The 350 million Pound note will be the size of a bus – but unfortunately no-one will be able to spend it.

• Unshackled-by-reality Brexit Secretary David Davis is understood to favour adopting the leaf as legal tender, so we can all become immensely rich. This has two extra advantages: the Remoaner city dwellers will be immediately impoverished; and when the Pound and the economy have become so small they’re practically non-existent, Britain can proudly remember who won by calling our new currency The Leave.

• (As this is already the fiscal policy of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, there’s a terrifying prospect of a cross-party consensus between the Free Money and Unicorns Grow On Trees thinkers on both sides of the Commons.)

• Obviously there isn’t a proposal from Disgraced Defence Minister and Not Yet (‘97 days and counting’) Disgraced Minister* Without Any Actual Role Liam Fox, because he doesn’t have any actual role. But as in the absence of a proper job he spends all his time contradicting anything David Davis says, watch out for Dr Fox taking matches near any woods. Though obviously none of his government ‘colleagues’ allow him to play with matches anyway.

What isn’t funny is that these plans above are more coherent and detailed than anything the Tory Government’s bickering factions have shared with us. What’s even less funny is that while they fight among themselves without a plan, the Pound continues to fall and the really big inflation dangers get ever closer. Take a read of Nick Clegg’s analysis: Food, Drink and Brexit. The threat to all of us ordinary people from rising prices is scarier than anything for Halloween.


In other news, everyone remembers the one absolutely clear, no-ifs, no-buts, no arguing about exactly what it means commitment made by the Leave campaign – that there would absolutely definitely be £350 million extra for the NHS. Every week.

This week, unelected Prime Minister Theresa May said that that wouldn’t happen. In fact, the NHS must make £22 billion of cuts instead.

And then she said that any elected MPs who dare to ask for a vote on her proposals weren’t “respecting the will of the British people”. What about respecting the will of all the voters who voted to “Take Back Control” and Parliamentary Sovereignty? It’s a kick in the face to them now Parliament’s told instead that all decisions will be made by a tiny ruling elite that not one voter chose to run the country. What about respecting the will of all the voters who voted for £200 billion a year extra for the NHS? It’s a kick in the face to them now an unelected Prime Minister is cutting it by £22 billion instead. Call that “respect”?

So What Does Brexit Mean?

The unelected Prime Minister is committing us – against everything the voters were told in June – to a “Hard Brexit”. Throwing away Mrs Thatcher’s Single Market. Rising prices. Crashing the Pound. Trashing the economy. Call that “Conservative”?

Some commentators don’t want to use the word “Hard” because it sounds butch. Macho. Tough. Decisive. When it’s actually just painful. Panicky. Reckless. Damaging. Without a plan. Ideologically extreme. Not giving a toss about kicking ordinary people in the wallet. It’s as if the Tory Government is trying to cost us all as much as possible.

Some people call this “Chaotic Brexit”.

For some it’s “Expensive Brexit”.

What does Mrs May’s Brexit mean? For me, there’s only one word for our unelected Prime Minister’s ‘plan’.

MAYHEM.


*This joke via Millennium Dome, Elephant, in his own excellent analysis of the increasing threat to the British economy from Mrs May’s wreckers.

Labels: British Politics, Conservatives, Douglas Adams, Economy, European Politics, Stupid Ideas, Unelected Prime Minister Theresa May