I was really looking forward to seeing the film, Little Children, because it promised no car chases, hardly any violence and mercifully, no special effects.
Just a fascinating insight into suburban life. One critic, Des Partridge, even referred to it as a black comedy. It was black all right, but not amusing. Continue reading
The one lesson that “The Godfather” movies taught me was that family and money don’t mix.
I’m referring to the recent suggestion made by Families Australia that grandparents should be paid for minding their grandchildren while the parents go to work. Continue reading
The Rolling Stones have done it. The Police have done it as have Cream. Apparently, Genesis is getting in on the act too.
There’s no stopping The Re-Generation, my name for those old rockers who make a comeback. We loved them when we were young and we love them now cause they make us feel young.
But do they really?
I have to confess that I cringe a little when I see the Stones, craggy and worn with arthritic hands that have strummed one too many a guitar. They all look so old and instead of making me feel young, I wonder if I look as bad as they do.
My first reaction is “Oh my god!” why do they want to appear in public and shatter the illusion. They don’t sing as well. They don’t move as well, but audiences still throng to see them cause we’re all in the same boat, hoping that time has been our friend.
Sadly, it hasn’t, even for those who have had that bit of help from a surgeon.
It’s not that they need the money. So it must be for the adulation that they once enjoyed and which they miss.
Can’t blame them for feeling that way, but I must admit that, from a purely selfish perspective, it’s better that Elvis and Marilyn and Jimmy Dean died early. I wouldn’t want to see them trying to resuscitate a flagging career. Nor do I want a reminder of the cruelty of Father Time.
The thought of an aging idol doing the rounds of cabarets is very sad and there’s something rather melancholy about performers who should know better.
I remember when Cary Grant decided that he no longer wanted to do romantic roles with much younger actresses. That man had panache.
It’s possible that I’m being too harsh but when I see the Stones prancing around on stage, I wonder how many fans are kidding themselves that nothing has changed.
But if you can fool yourself for a while, I suppose there’s no real harm in that.
W.C Fields and I had one thing in common as far as I know. We both don’t like being around children. Small children, big children and teenagers really get on my nerves.
As I head towards ‘respectable’ maturity, the one statistic that has impressed me is that our population is aging. By the Year 20 whatever, people over the age of sixty are going to double in numbers.
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A while back a study at some elite university came up with research that found that women over the age of eighty were having less sex. This research actually tried to find out why that is so. All they really had to do was to visit any old age establishment and observe the ratio of elderly men to women.
Heaven for the man in his harem but not so for the ladies!
This is the sort of study that wastes precious resources but still the academics have to do something to get published, I guess.
Another of my favourite research results was that people who reached the age of eighty were more likely to reach ninety. I mulled over that one for a while and then was forced to agree that people who carked it before they reached eighty had very little chance of turning ninety.
The U.S and its allies have made a serious mistake by invading Iraq in order to save it from Saddam Hussein. The mistake it made is in assuming that Iraqis value democracy as much as the Western nations do.
Arabs and Muslims are by nature followers of sheiks, imams and caliphs. They appear to be hierarchical rather than egalitarian as evidenced by their treatment of women. In Muslim culture women are second-rate citizens with few personal liberties. I will not debate this issue here for it is not the topic in question and frankly if the women want to be equal they will have to fight their own fight. Continue reading
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