I recently wrote a post on “The Neon Demon”, a 2016 horror film that I watched on my movie pay-channel. My main thought was that Nicolas Refn, who directed the film, had cast the female characters with such masculine bias, that they were literally transgendered into men. I got the following Facebook response that really intrigued […]
Society
For Dutch Children, Zwarte Piet Is No Golliwog
Photo: Wikipedia Commoms As always, around this time of year, the arrival on our shores, of Saint-Nicholas, with his band of merry Zwarte Piet’s (Black Peter’s), causes a few people to question the appropriateness of it all. They’re not concerned that he may be burning fossil fuels, in order to propel his steamboat all […]
Brexit Musings (8): Ain’t Britain Got Culture, No More?
Riches And Stitches in the EU It’s quite interesting to see how different European countries tackle the outcome of a general election that didn’t quite go to plan. It seems that, nowadays, the electorate want a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, and end up getting nothing. Dutch politicians rhymed their way […]
Replacing The Dumbo At The Jumbo
If life has tought me one thing, it’s appreciating that my wife is the one going to the supermarket on a weekly basis. It’s not that I am unwilling to help her, it’s the fact that she has become so good at spotting the difference between Dutch peas and French petits pois, that I feel […]
Brexit Musings (7) : Sparks and Larks in the City of Westminster
When I was a child, I used to cry my eyes out on Bonfire night. I was terrified of fireworks and had to stay inside and watch behind the safety of a closed window. For those of you who may not be familiar with this, Bonfire night or Guy Fawkes night, is celebrated in the […]
“Adios…Catalonia?”
(image: barcelonaconnect.com) It seems like a rotten sequel to an already very bad film. If you thought “Brexitmania” was bad, now we have the very latest cheap remake on a theme that is well past its “sell by” date. In deciding to go it alone, Catalonia has done exactly what the UK did, on 23rd […]
Facebook Is No Longer Michel Foucault’s “Heterotopia”
The Missing Comma It started with the sharing of a tweet in a Facebook group. There followed a heated discussion between those, like myself, who thought that the tweet had more than an undertone of racial prejudice and white supremacy, and those who didn’t. I don’t recall that the person who posted […]
Pardon Me, Your Honour – I’m a Sexy Lady With Talent
In May this year, Lavinia Woodward, an Oxford medical student, was found guilty of stabbing, and seriously injuring, her boyfriend. An exceptional delay in the verdict was pronounced, the court having heard of her ‘extraordinary talent’, as sufficient reason for this strange decision. The judge had made it clear that he did not favour a […]
Joking Apart – Don’t Turn Charlie Hebdo Into Charlie Hebdon’t
The Kouachi brothers ran into the street shouting “Charlie is dead”…Today’s Charlie-killers are loose on the Net and in the White House…But Charlie is alive and well. Well Donald, who do YOU remind ME of? WARNING In the same vein as Charlie Hebdo, this post is provocative and can endanger your mental health. This […]
I Can See The Toilets, But Where’s The Bar?
Rightly or wrongly, I cannot relate to how members of LGBT communities feel about themselves and the situation they find themselves in. This does not mean that I’m not aware that, most of the time, these human beings are the victims of severe and unwarranted discrimination. The fact is, that due to my own sexual […]