Yesterday was another day when my energy levels were pretty low, and today is not much better.
As a result, trivia caught my attention, including this in the Guardian:
The Tory leader later attacked Starmer for saying that he might watch Love Actually over Christmas, adding that she prefers watching Die Hard over the festive period.
I have never watched Die Hard, and I very much doubt I want to change that fact. The title is enough to put me off.
But Starmer's choice is almost as worrying. Ignore for a moment the many criticisms of that film now made. Just, instead, imagine why he might want to watch it. Surely, he does not fancy himself dancing around Downing Street, Hugh Grant style? Please tell me that is not the case.
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My wife and friend were watching a James Bond. Her friend wondered what spies get paid.
So I contacted someone I know in the business who replied ‘not much, basic Civil Service rates’ More ‘Big Mac & a Milkshake please, when’s the next bus?’ not ‘Martini, shaken not stirred, the Aston Martin’s outside’
While there is no doubt a frisson of excitement in the job and the unfathomable motivation of those that do these sorts of things, those that do keep us safe are not rewarded financially in the way that those at the top think they are entitled to be paid.
Perhaps something we need to think about.
This has to be it! Starmer must “…fancy himself dancing around Downing Street, High Grant style.” I cannot un-see it now. Happy holidays!
Sorry…
It’s not pretty, is it?
Blame my wife for putting the idea in my head.
Stymied (Starmer) also contributed to our national welfare with a salient defence I understand of the …………sandwich. A British sandwich of course – whatever that means.
Phew!! What a guy?
Now we can all sleep peacefully I suppose.
Get me out of here – please!
there is a scene in ‘When Harry met Sally’ about making a sandwich – but why do we pay our ‘leaders’ to discuss sandwiches?- even Miliband (Ed) has become involved- but in re The Earl of Sandwich, he was allegedly a gambler and allegedly corrupt – —– – .
I purloin a lot of quotes from movies and TV and shamefully long before I had political awareness I was an avid fan of a book that was made into a much poorer movie starring UK’s own Simon Pegg, while the book was much better in terms of laughs the movie had a pithy line that always stuck with me “the man of hidden shallows”
Later of course the author of the book turned out to be a rabid right wing Tory so I no longer have a copy of the book and no longer have any positive feelings about it.
If you’re looking for a great contemporary Christmastime movie, check out The Holdovers, very touching and hilarious.
Although I would say Alan Rickman’s scene chewing movie debut is a great movie personally.
I have never heard of it
But Rickman was always brilliant
“But Rickman was always brilliant”.
Then I respectfully suggest a viewing of “Die Hard”, to see Alan out-acting every other cast member would be worth the pain of the movie’s “plot”, or by viewing the further over-use of Hollywood’s favourite genre; efficiently defined simply: “USA! USA! USA!”
No, there are limits…
I’ve been saving The Holdovers for Christmas day. Paul Giamatti is brilliant in everything.
I second the recommendation for The Hangovers.
Heartfelt, wonderfully acted.
Might it be more useful for these “leaders” , who seem to both be afflicted by the Dunning Kruger Effect, to watch films which feature the catastrophic harms caused by the imposition of poverty.
Such could include “Les Miserables” and Oliver Twist films. Any other suggestions?
“The Dunning Kruger effect is a cognitive bias that occurs when people with limited knowledge or competence in a given area overestimate their abilities because they lack the attitudes and expertise to recognise their deficiencies.” (From A I Overview)
Apart from my sense of despair that at a time of war, genocide, and global instability, we are paying our PM & LOTO to channel the late Barry Norman and do film reviews, I wondered if perhaps Starmer sought inspiration in the speech made by Grant’s character, where he tells the US president where to get off?
Somehow I don’t see it happening (unless there is an aggrieved Martine McCutcheon in his life we don’t know about).
Meanwhile, we await Kemi Badenoch’s Bruce Willis-inspired New Year PMQs clothing choices with considerable trepidation.
How did we end up with those two as LOTO & PM?
@RobertJ
Q: “How did we end up with those two?”
A: Despair. Loss of hope. The sight of hell. “Hope never comes that comes to all.”
Satan, who by “the Almighty Power” has been “hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky with hideous ruin and combustion”, surveys Hell:
“Now the thought
Both of lost happiness and lasting pain
Torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes
That witnessed huge affliction and dismay
Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate:
At once as far as angels ken he views
The dismal situation waste and wild,
A dungeon horrible, on all sides round
As one great furnace flamed, yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all; but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed
With ever-burning sulfur unconsumed.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost
I’d suggest Mr Starmer watches ” A Christmas Carol ” , you’d hope something would resonate with him given the clear message Dickens delivered within it that most of us clearly see and try and live our lives accordingly .
Which version?
Alastair Sim for me Richard .
Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol was shown for more than one Christmastide of my youth.
It doesn’t much matter, I suspect, which version/production you watch. The narrative and the message are both clear. (Though I have to admit to not having seen more than snippets of Michael Caine and the Muppets)
I think that version best avoided
To be fair, Starmer liked The Smiths, Orange Juice and his favourite song was My Favourite Dress by The Wedding Present.
All right by me.
https://www.brooklynvegan.com/new-british-prime-minister-keir-starmer-is-an-indie-fan-whose-favorite-groups-include-the-smiths-and-the-wedding-present/
All the Guardian are telling us is that this Christmas, the Tory leader would prefer to watch films showing people being killed.
‘Lunch is for wimps’ and the attack on the British sandwich, as an example of the use of a political leader’s time, is so banal, so egregiously cheap, so vulgarly directed at soiled tabloid populism; it suggests only that Kemi Badenoch is still in overgrown, rebellious schoolgirl mode; and is not long for the world of political leadership. Unless, of course the Conservative Party is on the road to the extinction it so richly deserves.
Her comment reminded me of Bob Hope’s gag in the Western comedy The Paleface’ (1948); when as the wimpish dentist Peter ‘Painless’ Potter, he assumes the improbable role of tough cowhand in a saloon, orders a sarsaparilla and, quickly realising his serious mistake snarls “serve it in a dirty glass”. Or, lunch at your desk with a snarl and a steak.
The last sentence of your first paragraph John. …..oh if only that would happen.
Maybe it will in the sense that they’ll merge with/be taken over by Farage’s fascists.
It would be nice if that famed ‘pragmatism’ (anti intellectualism?) of theirs caused them to sit down and take a long hard look at what their policies have done to the country they so profess to love.
Maybe conclude that the small state low tax mantra is nonsense?
Ho ho, who am I kidding.
Oh dear, Richard.
Firstly a double edged comment:
So sorry to hear you’re under the weather – at the same age as you I know how debilitating illness is as we get older – BUT, your slowed down output, wonderfully informative as it is, has allowed me to catch up on reading and understanding your posts! Thank you.
However, I really wasn’t expecting to be left with the horrible image in my head of Keir Starmer prancing around Number 10 wiggling his bum in place of some pertinent economic insights on the latest government missteps.
Eeuuw.
Get well soon.
Thanks
And apologies for that image
Hard to get rud of, isn’t it?
Oh dear, never watched Die Hard. It is good escapism, not mentioning a Xmas staple. I have to say I am rather disappointed to learn of this fact Richard. Now the other film, I can understand why someone wouldn’t want to watch that.
I hate violence. As entertainment I have never, ever, seen its appeal.
I’m hoping that Starmer would take to heart the PM-in-the-film’s repudiation of the USAm’ican president.
If only that turned out to be the subtext.