Posts

Showing posts with the label CHILDREN OF MEN (THE)

Waiting out the polar vortex

Today is the midpoint of a three-day weather holiday for me. Karin had to go in to work (alas). Precious few clients have been passing through her credit union.

As I type this, the temperature is −18°F in my Zip Code area, with a windchill of −41°F. Or so it says on the Internet. It doesn’t look especially windy outside, but what do I know.

My plan for today is to post this blog entry, to dissertate, to read, and to watch one or two movies.

Others in my predicament might be interested in these classic movies that are due to expire from Netflix on February 1:

Children of Men (also expiring from Amazon Prime);

Close Encounters of the Third Kind; and

Touch of Evil.

Karin & I have begun watching Agatha Christie’s Ordeal by Innocence, a series in three parts, through Amazon Prime.

Karin has just sent a message that her office will close at 3:00 this afternoon and open at noon tomorrow.

I continue to rest my ankle. I can now limp without crutches around my apartment. I’d not previously detected any bruising on my ankle, but now there is a considerable amount.

Anglophilia

By now you should be tired of reading, every fall and spring, how the misty weather makes me anglophilic — how, suddenly, I want to think about punting on rivers, eating suet, having séances in gloomy houses. (I want to think about these things, not do them.) … Dystopias even seem agreeable. Right now I’m reading The Children of Men and envying the protagonists. Yes: hoodlums roam the countryside; but it’s jolly to be reminded of A Clockwork Orange. Yes: the government is ruthless; and so conspirators must plot in beautiful old churches, or in gardens, or museums.  What the survivalists hoard is wine. Where they live is Oxford. … Had C.S. Lewis remained in Ulster, would we have liked him just as well? Would we have been as interested in his life and writings? … What accounts for the forcefulness of anglophilia? … Even the Nazis, deep down, harbored affection for the English. Which was why they lost.