More Of The Same

The graveyard had three gates. It was my job to smash them all. I did it with the butt end of an axe.

That was one of last night's dreams.

The wind continues to blow hard. The snow on the ground has turned icy and crunchy. We were going to take Dot shopping today but we've had a telephone conference and decided against it.

One of my earliest memories (c.1956) is of seeing a streak of snow in a flowerbed on a sunny morning- and thinking, "That's ridiculous, This is March. You don't get snow in March!"

The Silence

No, not the Bergman movie, but a 2010 German film by Swiss director Baran Bo Odar-  a police procedural, a psychological thriller.

A girl has disappeared on the 23rd anniversary of an unsolved child murder. Her bike is found in the same field as that of the earlier victim.

The police are incompetent, shambolic. The only one with any nous is half crazy with grief for his dead wife. The retired copper who dealt with the earlier murder blunders around doing inappropriate things. He gets into a relationship with the mother of the first girl.

The two paedophiles responsible for the earlier crime are drawn together by the second. One has a conscience, the other is in love with him.

The parents of the second girl fall apart, then come back together. Who else do they have?

A thriller without stereotypes- in which every character is a proper person- wholly believable- that's quite something, no?

It's summer. The camera flies over green forests, shining lakes, yellow corn fields. The colours are intense, saturated.  Everything is well.

Protecting The Little Ones

"Will somebody think of the children" usually means "will somebody think of me (because I'm a bigot.)" Small children take most things in their stride. A teacher who used to be a man reappears as a woman. So what? Stranger things happen to Dora the Explorer.

I've never seen the desirability of protecting children from facts about the world. We want them to learn that one and one equals two,  why then conceal from them that some people are trans? It's useful information. Some of them may be trans too and will be glad of the role model. Besides, the sooner they learn about such things- and how ordinary they are- the less chance there is of them growing up to be bigots.

But, then again, if there were no bigots in the world there'd be nobody for Richard Littlejohn to talk to- and that would be sad.