R's rue

 I’ve never really liked Casablanca . I watched it again yesterday afternoon with some onion rings and a lascivious bitch under each arm in the hope I would enjoy it  I know I should like it , after all it’s supposed to be one of the biggest screen love stories of the 20th century . But I just don’t get it.  Rick is too bad tempered. Ilsa flitted from one man to another in a blink of an eye and the film noir stalwarts such as Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorrie just got on my tits as did Claude Rains with his jaunty kepis. I didn’t believe the story and I was bored ….. The love affair between Bergman and Bogart feels wrong to me and as I did in Now Voyager , my affections clearly swing towards Paul Henreid as the quietly spoken Czech resistance leader . Boy was he a dish, especially when he got the Night Club crowd to belt out the Marseillaise to drown out the nazi singing  He had me at “ Ahoj” from Going Gently https://ift.tt/PHdOyjQ

This is my 341st blogpost of the year making this my best annual tally. I have overtaken 2020 - The Year of the Covid. However, there won't be any more blogposts for the next few days as we are heading down to London on Friday morning. We will be spending Christmas there and not returning until the day after Boxing Day. For the past few years, I have made an online Christmas card using one of the photographs I took in preceding weeks. I e-mail that "card" to a range of acquaintances, past friends, distant family members and even some bloggers I have known for years.  There are several closer friends and family members plus neighbours  to whom I still post proper cards in the traditional manner. This year's online card picture was only taken last week as I walked above Fernilee Reservoir in Derbyshire. You may recognise the image. I have not been feeling well this past week - ticklish cough, leaking nasal passages, pink eyes, headache - that sort of thing but I thi...

 I’ve been reading some interesting articles by Imran Ahmed,  the CEO of the nongovernmental organisation CCDH ( Centre for Countering Digital Hate) . He discusses people who exhibit the psychological trait of “ negative Social Potency” which can be simply described as “ Wanting to upset or hurt” couple this with boredom, a need for attention or personal amusement and you have what my mother would occasionally refer to as a shit stirrer .Professor Mark Griffith from Nottingham Trent University discusses the need to be amplified and adds this concept into the mix. We all want to be heard but people with Negative social Potency want to upset whist being heard. It’s a sad way a run a railroad.  And a dysfunctional way of living a life. I had sausages cooked in the air fryer for brunch today. I made them into hot buttery sandwiches with flat bagels, perfect with a mug of tea.  I’m going back to bed shortly as I’m on nights , and I will be taking the girls with m...