Knock Yourself Out, Frances, They Still Exist.

Frances Ryan has found another thing wrong with modern society:

...when it comes to watching films on the platforms, I am one extortionate paywall away from buying a DVD player off eBay and Googling: “Does Blockbuster still exist?”

What’s the problem? 

It is not simply that Netflix and co are killing cinema – although, yes, that is a thing that is objectively bad. It is that the advent of streaming has made watching a movie in your own home more costly, more restricted and often incredibly annoying.

Really? Is this part of Frances' disability then? 

Nowadays, if you rent a film that has recently been released it’ll cost you up to £20, far more than if you saw it in most cinemas – plus you’re paying the electric and heating bills.

Rubbish! I watched 'Zootopia 2' at the weekend, a film that was in the cinema at Christmas, on Disney+, it cost me nothing extra, whate sort of niche vieeing is she after?

When I fancied rewatching Sense and Sensibility recently, it struck me how it had become the norm to have to search through Netflix, Prime and Disney+ to work out which one currently owns the rights to each film. I eventually unearthed it on iPlayer. I think it was quicker for Jane Austen to write the novel.

You can just google that, you know... 

My personal loathing is what I pettily insist on calling Prime’s “double paywall”, in which Amazon blocks off popular films from its own subscribers unless they stump up a £3.49 rental charge on top of the £8.99 we’re already paying monthly.

I just want to be able to rewatch a beloved film without helping Jeff Bezos buy another yacht.

What do you care what he spends his money on? Is that the real issue? 

But Your Story And Experience Doesn't Match Up With It

Bafta-winning actress Wunmi Mosaku says she found parts of herself "I thought I had lost or tried to dim as an immigrant trying to fit in" as she took the best supporting actress prize for her role in the film Sinners.

She's playing a Voodoo priestess, but what exactly in her own history makes this an 'authentic experience'..? 

The 39-year-old, who was born in Nigeria and grew up in Manchester, has drawn widespread acclaim for her role as Hoodoo priestess Annie in the musical horror film.She moved with her family from the historic Nigerian city of Zaria to Manchester when she was a one-year-old baby.

The only thing they would appear to have in common is their skin colour. Isn't that, well, racist? Not to mention cultural appropriation? 

Mosaku said: "I found a part of myself in Annie, a part of my hopes, my ancestral power and connection, parts I thought I had lost or tried to dim as an immigrant trying to fit in."

Not trying very hard, then, clearly. 

Speaking at the winners' press conference, she said: "It always feels good when you feel like your story and your experience is being represented with integrity and creativity. She said she had been pleased to see "the response of black women feeling seen, loved, valued, treasured, and the power of our ancestry and the spirituality".

What a load of bollocks!  

If You're Going to Team Up With A Well-Known IP To Flog Your Wares...

 

...shouldn't you study how it works first?

Sunday Funnies...

 No 20 certainly deserve to do better...

What’s Up With Firearms Licensing In Scotland!?

I caught the BBC documentary on Dunblane last weekend and it raised a few issues I was previously unawere of. 

The first being I'd always assumed that the petition to ban handguns was led by the bereaved paerents but no, the documentary showed it was set uo by three women unconnected to the tragedy except by living in Dunblane, of a type we would now dub 'Karens', who took it upon themselves to run the petition which eventually was succesful in banning handgun despite the official Cullen inquiry not suggesting such a step was necessary. 

The second thing was that there was no mention of the perpetrator 'at the request of the interviwees' and so the programme was rather incomplete. of course, no mention of the perpetrator meant no mention of the culpability of those authorities you were begging for help from!

Then in the week, this story caught my eye:

A gamekeeper who trapped a rare bird of prey in a cage before beating it to death was caught out by a covert surveillance operation.Russell Mason, 49, lured the protected goshawk into a baited trap before battering it several times with a cosh to cause its agonising death.

Mason was previously placed on the sex offenders register after being spotted carrying out a solo sex act in his car by a resident of a sheltered housing complex.

To be a gamekeeper requires that one hold a shotgun license doesn't it?  What are the police doing that they are handing a registered sex offender a firearms licence? Didn't they learn that lesson 30 years ago? 

.

And Hopefully, You've Learned A Lesson...

An experienced magistrate has been given a warning for misconduct after making a 'racist' comment on WhatsApp during a discussion about Winston Churchill. Derek Muhammad JP made the comment in a private message group during an 'intellectual discussion about the complex legacy of Winston Churchill and the colonial history of Britain'.

Oh ho ho. How I love to see people hoist on their own petard...

But, another member of the group complained it was 'racially prejudiced' and left them in a state of 'distress'.

Deploying the ultimate weapon of the once-great British judicial system: 'I'm offended!'

Bedfordshire-based Mr Muhammad, who has been a magistrate for almost 20 years, denied the comment was racist and claimed it had actually been a 'criticism of colonial exploitation'. He added that he could not be prejudiced against people 'with whom he shares ancestry'. But, despite his protestations, Mr Muhammad has now been given formal advice for misconduct.

I wonder if at any time throughout this process he had second thoughts on the wisdom of becoming part of such a captured enterprise as the modern judicial system. I do hope so. 

In Today's 'No Shit,Sherlock! News...

Cannabis is not an effective treatment for common mental health conditions despite the global surge in patients using it for that purpose, a review has found.

No! I’m astonished to find that out! 

Researchers concluded there was “very little evidence for its efficacy” in treating anxiety, anorexia nervosa, psychotic disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder or opioid use disorder. Experts from universities in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne in Australia and Bath in England undertook the largest and most comprehensive analysis to date of the evidence for using cannabinoids – cannabis-based therapies – to treat substance misuse and mental health disorders.

Well, you could knock me down with a feather!  

Sir Robin Murray, a professor of psychiatric research at King’s College London, said: “While people such as me consider that the therapeutic benefits of cannabis are extremely limited, and the side effects common, the world doesn’t believe this.

Well, you wouldn't be the first (or only) expert who is no longer trusted as you once would have been, but in this instance you should be.

“Bolstered by the claims of the cannabis industry and the rapidly increasing cannabis clinics in the UK, many people are misled into using cannabis to treat their problems. In my view, the UK cannabis clinics operate as drug dealers for the middle class.”

The middle class? I though that they were all on Charlie? Pot strikes me as a lower class drug... 

You Didn't Get This In 'Dixon Of Dock Green's Day...

A Metropolitan Police officer who lied about her newborn daughter’s real father was caught out speaking to her lover by a dog camera in the family home.

Not skilled in surveillance techniques and how to ensure against them then!  

The sergeant’s firefighter husband “did not question paternity” when she suddenly announced she was pregnant in January 2022, a gross misconduct hearing was told.But in June of the following year, he logged on to the “doggy cam” while at work and saw her talking to a male colleague on FaceTime. He overheard the word “daddy”. It later emerged she had sent the love rat policeman a Father’s Day card.

/facepalm  

When confronted by her husband, the officer said she “had an idea” of the true biological parent - but “wanted an easy life” and hoped her husband “would never find out”. But a disciplinary panel chaired by Matt Simmons heard a midwife nearly gave the game away when she revealed her exact conception date.Officer A tried to convince the nurse this was impossible as her embarrased other half - who attended the 12-week hospital scan - would have been working a night shift so they couldn’t have slept together.Despite their child being born a week earlier than the October due date, he still had no suspicions and agreed there was a physical resemblance.

How naive was he!? 

A devastating DNA test revealed the truth in July.

i wonder who requested it..? 

Mr Simmons found Officer A wilfully provided false information at the Registry Office about her daughter’s father on November 17, 2022 and again on April 14, 2023 after the marriage. After finding discreditable conduct proved at a gross misconduct level, she was dismissed without notice.

Another vacancy at the Met…. 

Let Me Take A Guess? Is It Idiots?

Apparently yes, it’s idiots. Or as we now call them, ‘biohackers and heath optimisers:

Grey-market injectable peptides – a category of substances with obscure, alphanumeric names such as BPC-157, GHK-Cu, or TB-500 – have developed a devoted following among biohackers and health optimisers.

Like 'influencers', a modern-day pestilence spread by the Internet...

Driving While Diverse

A drug driver who ploughed into the central reservation of the M1 before continuing with a missing wheel has been jailed.

Yes, Reader, you guessed it… 

Omar Makhluf, 20, drove for several miles before finally pulling over at a service station near Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire.The crash happened on the motorway’s northbound stretch after Toddington, Bedfordshire at around 3.30pm on February 16 last year. Despite damage to his car, Makhluf, of Keel Close, Barking in east London drove on three wheels and was then filmed getting out of the vehicle at junction 14 for Newport Pagnell.

Bang to rights! 

When told the grounds for his arrest at the service station, he replied: “I didn’t do dangerous driving.”In police interview, Makhluf struggled to stay awake and yawned while officers questioned him.

That won’t have endeared him to the investigators.

He was sentenced to 22 months and disqualified for four years for this offence and other matters elsewhere in the country. 

I wonder what the ‘Other matters’ were, and why the reporter doesn’t see fit to inform us?