Wednesday 24 February 2010

Blowing Wild, Infamable, Names in Marble and Devil in a blue dress plus some live cricketn

Panic is closely allied to fear and while I did not experience either on waking early, there were hints of both as if they were nestling below my horizon waiting for an opportune moment to pounce.

I was physically uncomfortable through several wakings, the need to get up and with an exceptionally dry mouth. It was a cold night at first although I warmed up later on which made the need to get up irritating.

It was also a cold drab morning looking as if it had been also wet, although it was not. I tided up the writing ready of uploading but also played chess where I am slowly edging to the highest run so far of level two chess of 47 games from the 369 played with 16 drawn. There has been more success with Hearts in that the days when I was winning only 11-15% of games are distant and have led over 20% for approaching two months, with this day breaking 22% after sticking at 21% for a couple of weeks, probably more.

I do not feel like doing what I need to do. The sense of the quantity of work required and the emotional impact fills me with dread. So why do it? A good question.

The greater part of the day was used constructively on project work where I discovered sets in hand and in the making where I was able to make more progress than anticipated so that I am now just ahead of the 100 new sets a month schedule. I also watched a Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Anthony Quinn, black and while film which I have seen before called Blowing Wild. The film was made after he hit he top with High Noon and centres on Mexico City where he is stranded after bandit blow up his promising oil well exploration. He turns for work to a former best friend who he finds has a successful field, only find that the friend has married the woman he once wanted more that she wanted him. Rather than intervene in this situation he does a fun with nitro for eight hundred dollars, coming into confrontation with the bandits again, his other best friend and working colleagues is injured in the knee. He has also attempted top help return tot eh USA a good time worldly girl played by Ruth Roman and she tips him off in good faith when his employer pretends he has no money to settle the nitro trip and in fact the man is about to skip the county with first claim debtors which means he had to hand over all his and his partner's fees with the exception of money he has already given to Ruth Roman which makes the bond between them stronger.

Without any financial means he is forced to go to work for Anthony Quinn despite the misgivings about the betraying wife who is seeking a way out from the marriage. Cooper hen takes over as foreman and then risks all to save the latest well before the Bandits arrive. Quinn. who has worked out that while he adores his wife, his wife adores Copper, gets drunk and decided to prove he is still the man he once was by taking on the bandits singled handed. His wife seizes her chance and kills her husband making it look like an accident. When the authorities come for the body they also bring men to protect the property from the bandits and during a fierce fight Copper kills the bandit leader and Stanwyck is also killed. Cooper, his best friend and Ruth Roman are then seen packed up about to leave Mexico city, presumably for the USA, apparently penniless but happy although presumably the Mexican government will have rewarded them for seeing off the bandits and saving the oil field. It has always amazed me that people without money appear able to take off to other parts of the world and established themselves. How do they do it?

I had the second stir fry of the week for the midday meal although used to much chilli sauce although for once the stinging hotness was enjoyable. I also went through in the tray and discovered I had not seen a helpful response to a recent query but most of the mail went into the recycle box after it was opened.

I am also dipping into the Big Brother House where in last night episodes the foul mouthed nasty housemate who has already been warned about her temper by Big Brother demonstrated just how ruthless she is behind a house meeting with the purpose of asking everyone to say what hey have to say about each other but not behind their backs. She is the worst culprits bad mouthed and scheming and trying to put everyone else other than the person she is talking in a bad light. One of the girl's who had become her friend finally used out this behaviour and beat herself up in the diary room for having been taken in. She had no need as she appears to be the first to see what everyone else on the outside can see and by doing so she has helped her own cause no end, admittedly just in time before the eviction nominations are made. The housemates collectively are a very stupid group this time. Their task was to separate 6000 grams of mixed up flavours by licking each one. It was a task they were destined to fail as they had no means of verifying their efforts and hungry they would have been wise to have pigged out on the crisps rather than put themselves through the task although I accept Big Brother could have exacted penalties.23 Later today I channel hopped between the Big Brother House update and a film I have seen before but could not remember the precise ending. Mario and Alexander receive the most nomination for eviction from the rest of the residents and therefore face the public vote which ends on Friday evening. Mario because he is older and tries to take a lead when it would have been better if he had just to be one of the group, and because he has tried to appear good and kind acting as the guardian of Mikie Mikey? who although severely visually handicapped lives on his own with the help of a carer. I became sorry for Alex as "accidentally" the loudspeaker went on in the house just as Big Brother was asking the other Muslim why he thought Alex did not join in his cross dressing idea to celebrate his birthday. The explanation she gave on learning that he had been posed the question was that he had gone too far as a Muslim. She admitted they both drank and smoked, their true natures, although all the violent swearing and being too faced can be put down to the game and trying to make a name for oneself as a personality standing out from the rest of the wannabes. It will be interesting to see how the public vote. One suspects the average audience member for this programme will prefer the vile mouthed, smoking and drinking two faced Muslim to the Muslim who is respectful of their parents and elders, does not smoke or drink, works hard at their education or in employment and tries even harder to follow the rituals and beliefs of their religion. But then of course such an individual of which form the majority would not make controversial television or selling newspapers.

The cricket proved to be something special. Lancashire had won all three of their games and on winning the toss decided to bat first and on a good wicket did very well with some power hitting and reaching 180 runs to which was added 6 penalty runs because Durham took more than allocated. The score could well have been higher has it not been for an eighteen year old, Shaun Borthwick from the Durham Academy called to play his first game for the senior side. He has not even played for the second team. Therefore there must have been great faith in his ability in such an important match. It would also have been felt he was able to perform on such a bug occasion. He did taking three wicket for 26 runs including caught and bowled. It was evident he could not believe what was happening to him especially as he found himself being interviewed on Sky. He comes from Sunderland.

Durham were always chasing the runs in their innings, especially after Mustard was out when he had scored 61 and the two South Africans were at the wicket, Pollock the bowler and Morkel who had played well in the World Cup demonstrating that he was a powerful hitter of the ball, He did not do well in the games I have seen him play and today he was able to get singles when fours and sixes were needed, and Shane Pollock was also scratching around and then something extraordinary happened as Morkel hit 5 sixes in three over's plus two four 45 runs from 19 ball blitz. It was also the nature of sixes crashing into the stands which had everyone amazed and which augers well for the rest of this campaign, Although both team now have 6 points from three wins and one loss, Durham heads the table of six teams with only the top two guaranteed a quarter final game because of the win against the other top team. However there are another six games to be played so anything can happen but my decision to invest in Durham rather than the football has proved one of my better decisions so far. This does not mean that I will not go to the football although it will involve paying more for individual tickets although last year any advantage from buying a season was lost by not going to several matches because of weather or other commitments.

And the film called Inflammable, I think, was about gender prejudice in the Navy involving a female investigative officer from NCIS coming onboard after an attempted rape is reported. There is an important romantic backstory in that lass had a brief encounter with the ship's Commanding officer when she was just starting out working for the investigatory arm of the US Navy. It is incidental that the attempted rape victim and her quickly apparent scumbag of a boyfriend are black and are murdered changing the whole nature of the investigation or that the motive for the murders turns out to be nothing to do with gender politics in the navy. I spotted the big clue at the commencement of the film when the black girl accidentally drives her for truck into dangerous inflammable containers and nothing happens and that although she investigates the damage we then cut away to the next scene. At the end of the film it transpires that the most senior woman on the boat has managed to get half a million of drugs onto the boat and hidden them in a container without anyone else on board knowing but fortunately when the rating discovered he stash through the accident she does not tell her senior officer responsible for the area or any one else but the officer responsible for attempted drugs' smuggle. The attempted rape was not an actual rape but a terrorist assault to frighten the woman from revealing that he boy friend was operating a business selling pornographic images from the internet to shipmates. Given the nature of ships and the use of technology this storyline as absurd as everyone on board who wishes will have as much access as they wish to pornographic material including films and live communications as they wish without have to set up rings and pay additional sums. More credible is the creation of a secret love nest among the works of the ship. I finally found the name of the important and moving film about the post World War 1 civil war in Estonia which led to twenty years of independence. It is called Names in Marble and produced in Finland. I forgot to say anything about another recent film experienced Devil in a Blue Dress, which is intended to be a film noir about a black detective, former war veteran Easy Rawlins played by Denzel Washington who paid to find a missing white woman believed to be hiding in the black community. While undertaking the search he finds himself a suspect in not one but two murders . The plots continues to be convoluted and one soon cease to care and just enjoys a well acted portrayal of black and white interaction among one level of culture in the USA and fog he changes taking place. Recently I listened to radio programme about the reaction of local including the leader of an evangelic church against the development of whites moving into Harlem, raising property prices and changing the cultural identity of a community which has come to be known as the symbol of a black city life in the USA. On one hand one can understand the reaction oft hose whose memory stretches over a lifetime in which Blacks were restricted to certain parts of cities and to certain levels of employment and too feel aggrieved that when at last the government decided to pump millions and billions into raising standards and opportunities including developing businesses it is the major store chains and commercial interests who have taken the funds and commenced to direct the future of the community. It is also why the UK my sympathies are with those who feel overwhelmed by the level of new arrivals from Europe however nice they are and however much they are contributing to the survival and development of the British Economy. It is evident that there are going be lots of casualties as well all adjust to global capitalism, especially when China rather than the USA is ready to be the economic powerhouse for the world.

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