Discord

Finally got on Discord and joined a server today. I know everyone else has been using them for years but I’ve only just found a reason to - or thought I did.

Back in the day we had newsgroups, then chat rooms, then all that went away as social media giants like Facebook took hold. What was the point of a private chat room when people could put their opinions and dis/likes on Facebook and everyone who knew them (and then everyone that didn’t) could just jump in anyway?

Now it’s come full circle, with invitation-only chat rooms - with added voice, video and jukebox functions - making a big comeback. Share your screen to show you gaming, working, watch-alongs. Chat and video-chat. Type messages and add gifs, images and links. Whatever you want is now in your private chat room once again - and it’s only who you invite.

So today I got an invitation to one and I joined Discord just so I could get in. A 5-minute process that led me down a rabbit hole of fun, frolics and camaraderie the likes of which I haven’t experienced since the Supernatural fandom Hell Bus years, or the Farscape Wormhole Watch years.

Totally worth it. An early bleak, freezing Saturday afternoon became a laugh riot and adrenaline rush as we exchanged our best screenshots, got in our best jokes, welcomed all the fellow noobs and established personalities. A brilliant time was had by all, I think.

The only downside to this is the time zone clash, but obviously that was always going to be a problem and there’s nothing you can do about it. But it means that when I wake up at 6am because I’m bored, now I’ll have a reason to log in and see what everyone else is up to. I’m not saying I need a reason to get out of bed these days (even for work) but I pretty much need a reason to get out of bed these days.

But hey, today was a highlight and I’m so glad I accepted that invitation to the server. Sometimes exploring is more than you’d hoped for.

Soopytwist.

Stranger (비밀의 숲) - seasons 1 and 2

Lockdown 2.0 has us all confined to places we probably don’t want to be, at least for some of the time. Netflix has provided a plethora of stuff to watch, not least of all the stellar Kingdom (킹덤), the Korean imperial zombie horror / thriller that was a solid 9/10 for me. Great ideas, plot twists and proper full-on zombies, the whole two seasons were a blast that I couldn’t stop watching.

On the back of that Netflix recommended another Korean drama to me; Stranger (비밀의 숲) from 2017. Full of award-winning power houses from South Korea’s acting best of the best, and written by someone who enjoys torturing viewers with proper mysteries, I was hooked by the end of the first episode. The characters are new to me, fun to guess at, brilliant to get to know. The budget, the production, the whole thing is a different flavour of thriller than the sometimes plodding or predictable American and British fare that I’m used to. It differs again from the Hong Kong dramas of the day, and even from the Taiwan crime dramas I’ve seen.

You know that old adage, “you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all”? I feel like that with a lot of American stuff; there’s only so many times you can watch the straight white dude win in the end just because he’s the ‘good guy’. I needed something different, and Kingdom was my second foray into Korean drama. (Full disclosure; my first was Suspicious Partners [수상한 파트너], which was all love story all the time and that’s not my thing. I gave up on it after a few episodes.) It turned out to be a gateway to twisty-turny mysteries, where they don’t waste time building up to something only to find that there’s one mild twist at the end. Instead you get logical paths answered in one or two episodes instead of five or six, and then you get a twist that sets you off on a different path. It’s fun, it’s new - and while everyone in South Korea or the rest of the K-drama world will think this particular series is nothing new, it’s new to me, and I’m having fun discovering a whole new genre.

Kingdom was my primer. Stranger has been, for me, the ultimate game of Cluedo - after you determine what the root crime is about that kicks off everything to follow. It’s clever, it’s full-on, it’s fascinating. We have political intrigue where people are trying to one-up each other, jockeying for positions they covet in police and prosecutors’ offices. We have personal dilemmas, where employees have to think very carefully about what they are doing by opening up cans of worms. We have chains of events kept in motion by people unknown, until it all finally comes out. Strap yourselves in for a long, slow burn of many twists and satisfying discoveries: keeping all these plates in the air at all times is the amazing cast of characters.

It would be remiss of me not to mention how big the stars are behind this series. While they are heavyweights in the movie world they also appear in TV dramas, mostly to keep themselves paid, like every actor. We have big names here, totally unknown to me except that they bring so much life to the characters I found myself picking favourites within the first ten minutes of air time. The way the characters come over, bit by bit, layer by layer, revealed only by their interactions with everyone else serving their own ulterior motives, kept me glued to the subtitles. So who are these people?

We are presented with two main characters, who I attached to very quickly. The first is Lieutenant Han Yeo-Jin, a police officer with the tenacity of a ratting terrier but the heart of someone who knows what it’s like to be on the outside due to the cruelty of others outside your control. Played with brilliant flair by Bae Doona, she is a stark contrast to the prosecutors we meet. Her police colleagues are half with her and half against, not really understanding her. Her one true friend, Jang Geon, is a great detective but needs her guidance in navigating the structure of the police force. She doesn’t seem to care for all that on the surface, although she sees it going on. She dresses in brighter colours than everyone else, she draws little cartoons of people or things she thinks about, she is lively, animated, fun and probably too much sunshine for her colleagues on some days.

Her counterpart in being devoted to truth and tracking it down works in the prosecutor’s office, not historically a place where alliances with police are welcome. Prosecutor Hwang Si-Mok is diligent, effective, sharp as a knife and equally as dangerous as he refuses to take part in office politics, agendas or camps. Partly the reason for this, and the wrinkle that keeps this whole drama ticking toward its conclusion to well, is the surgery he had to go through as a teen. A problem with some part of his brain caused incalculable pain as he got older, something to do with loud noises or certain frequencies (I guess like a severe attack of super-concentrated tinnitus). In order for him to live something like a normal life, he undergoes a partial lobotomy. This causes him to lose empathy and other most emotions. He is now a model prosecutor, just as intended - he has no sentiment, no pesky emotions getting in the way of his duty to finding the truth and bringing it to court with winning cases. He appears dour, uninterested in small talk or social niceties other than what protocol demands, and is totally aloof from life in general. He should be a boring character - but a wonderful portrayal by Cho Seung-Woo makes him fascinating to watch, where every micro-expression carries more weight than anyone else’s emotion.

Enter Lieutenant Han. Over the next 16 episodes she will bully Hwang into acknowledging that he has sporadic attacks and it’s physically painful enough to render him unconscious. She will bully him into accepting her little sketches of him, of how his brain should be slowly filling back up with emotional control since the surgery, how there is hope of him not turning out totally alone for the rest of his life. And she does all this by smiling at him, speaking to him like a human being, treating him carefully rather than being harsh with him and using the clenched jaws and dirty scowls the men in his office direct at him for being different.

Between them they will uncover everything that’s going down, sharing things on the quiet, working out theories and reasons and motives over ramen, text messages, shared looks. By the time we get to the conclusion, their very quiet, understated teamwork will be legend. And for good reason - they are a force to be reckoned with, one with the determination to see it through because you uncover the truth to prevent further harm, to stop people being hurt, and the other determined to get to the truth because it’s the right thing to do and who cares about privilege and people thinking they can get away with anything because they’re your senior?

I’m not going to lie, this was epic for me. Two people getting to the resolution through different means and being Team Awesome despite everyone’s complete disdain and disapproval? Totally platonic BFFs who don’t even know they’re BFFs, taking down anyone who’s connected to the whole sordid case? I’m in.

And let’s not forget the supporting cast - we have magnificent cockroach Seo Dong-Jae, who is doing his best to kiss the right arse at the right time in order to secure promotion. He is a focal point and so important to everything that goes down, and I enjoy watching him attempting to insert himself into the lives of strategically important people. The way he gets himself into scrapes and then manages to get out again by falling into a bigger one is epic and is a fascinating juxtaposition to what everyone else is up to. He could not be any more opposite to Hwang Si-Mok in every way; he’s loud, he’s brash, he’s immaculately dressed and perfectly coiffed at all times. He’s confident in his ability to come out on top at everything… until he doesn’t. Lee Joon-Hyuk is so good in this role it’s like he was born for it.

With season one done, I had to find more stuff to occupy me - and then it turns out there’s a season two.

Ok, if I thought season one was good with the plot twists and the fun friends shenanigans, then ai-yah I was naïve. Season two is like season one on steroids. Honestly, it’s great stuff and it covers so much more than season one. The writer has said that she has enough for five seasons, and I for one hope that’s a promise. Season two gave us separation, personal discovery, deep dives into office politics and best of all, the most epic Hwang/Han shipping we could ask for. Still Team Awesome once they hit their stride, him letting her help in times of dire vulnerability when he spends his life covering it up, him going over everyone’s heads to step in for her without her knowledge but only when she needed it - everything I could have asked for, and especially as it’s without all that boring romance shit.

The final scene made me grin uncontrollably at the way certain characters were coming to terms with things, and although it ended in a frustrating way, I have heard there may be a season three some time in the next two years.

Just about time for me to move onto new dramas, miss these two seasons, and then go back and watch them all again.

Perfect.

With Friends Like These

Done some writing. I blame this on Covid nights and having Green Hornet (2011) on repeat due to its feel-good factor, cheap vodka and equally cheap pork scratchings.

Ladies, gentlemen, boths and neithers, I give you:

Title: With Friends Like These

Rated T for injury details, naughty words, fights and semi-nudity (not my fault).

Summary:

Dealing with the aftermath of the movie, new drug dealers, trust issues, new District Attorneys, undercover work, phobias and weaknesses, dating co-workers, how to be friends; it would all be so much easier if Britt and Kato could just get along. Even oil and water can mix temporarily, right?

Disclaimer: 

I do not own any Green Hornet characters, names, likenesses or the suggestion thereof. This is all for fun, not for profit. Unless you add me to any favourites lists or leave reviews/comments - then I get to smile. Linky-link-link: here at An Archive of Our Own under my name TozaBoma (which is where we collectively won a Hugo Award last year) and here at Fanfiction dot net under my name Mardy Lass.

If you even visit the page, I thank you.

Sisko was right about baseball

Ben Sisko - Commander and then Captain in Starfleet during the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine years, in an effort to explain liner time to an alien race, compared it to a baseball game. His reasoning was that you never know what can happen next in life - humans are resigned to being stuck on a timeline that only ever moves forward, where the future is inaccessible.

Why is this relevant? During this lockdown of 2020 I’ve been finding things to do. I’ve been writing more - I’ve finished a fic that I started two years ago, and now that’s been let out into the world I’ve 90% completed another one, in that it’s written but now I’m doing the post production on it (continuity, filling in those missing street names, realising I’ve missed a plot hole, etc.). But I needed a Third Place - everyone needs work, then a hobby or pastime, and then a third something. A while ago someone explained this to me and I realised for me they were right - I did need something that wasn’t connected to the other two, just for a change of pace and skill set.

I’ve never been much of a sports person - I prefer to do rather than watch. I find football interminably boring. Ice hockey is more my pace when watching live in the stadium (even though you can’t actually follow the puck), but when I am reduced to watching it on the telly? That’s hard. I was chatting online with a friend on the other side of the planet about political stuff - Hong Kong, China, that kind of thing - and she mentioned the President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-Wen (蔡英文), tweeting about the opening of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (the CPBL). As the game is not played in China the country (because it’s a game played by dirty anti-communists, perhaps?), this refers to the Taiwan baseball league exclusively.

I’d always liked the idea of baseball but found MLB hard to watch - it was like test cricket, where it seemed to take years to finish a single game. Lots of time-outs, chatting, swapping, farting about - not for me. So when my mate suggested I try one of the free streams to watch a Taiwanese game, I thought, well, what do I have to lose? A quick DuckDuckGo of the internet (I don’t use that search engine beginning with G) produced an excellent website: The CPBL Stats site. As someone who doesn’t actually know the rules to baseball or any history, this site has been invaluable. (Honestly, the only players I could name were Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, and Willie Mays - and the only reason I know Willie Mays is because of the eponymous trading card that was the MacGuffin of the DS9 episode ‘In the Cards’).

So using this website and its links to free streams (in English), I did catch a game. And it was amazing fun. I don’t know how American baseball games work, but ones in Taiwan are stadium parties with live entertainment. You have AA+ players (something MLB people understand but I don’t) doing their best as trained, fit, athletes (honestly, a lot of the outfielders’ efforts to catch fly balls border on Fancy Dan manoeuvres). You have stadiums full of spectators as Taiwan have already managed to control the whole pandemic quite quickly - and fans have drums, super soakers, player shirts / towels / boards, a ‘never give up, never surrender’ party-or-die attitude. There are cheerleaders who go through easy routines for the crowds to follow in their seats. There are mascots who go round chucking out soft toys, prizes - they have the cameras that go over the spectators with different filters, so you have a ‘wash cam’ (if the camera lands on you then you need to pretend to be washing your hands), a ‘water cam’ (take a drink), a ‘muscle cam’ (show us your arm muscles - especially the kids), a ‘love cam’ (make a heart with your arms and top of your head) - the fun goes on. Major players have their own theme songs and chants that the entire stadium sings with the beat of that guy who brings the drum. There’s one older guy who turns up to every game and sits near the front who I’ve elected to refer to as Fubon Grandad. After the 5th inning there’s a ten-fifteen minute break while they rake the pitch and check the bases etc., so they fill this with the MC of the evening picking people from the crowd to take part in simple games versus cheerleaders to win prizes. There are family groups, friends groups, serious sports addicts, casual fans and everything in between. It’s a fun, fierce few hours - because they rarely go over three and a half hours for a game (when they’re not stopped for rain).

And do you know what all this has taught me? During lockdown I was fine with the constant staying in, the living alone, the being able to work from home and get stuff done - been loving it, actually (not a fan of humans really). But I’ve been doing this since March 2020 and it’s now the end of August. At weekends when I don’t work, I ponder if I actually get out of bed at all. It’s all much of a muchness - there’s nothing to do, nothing to look forward to except a break from being at my work laptop in the corner of the flat. But these baseball games - at weekends they start at 5pm Taiwan time, so for BST that’s 10am. Now I HAVE to get out of bed because the English commentary has already started, showing the pre-game shenanigans such as the opening pitch by a local celebrity, the team run-downs, the whole shebang. And here’s the important bit - the games are so unpredictable, so dramatic in the way they can turn from a comfortable 4-0 lead into a 5-9 defeat, that it’s broken my feeling of lethargy.

Ben Sisko was right - baseball is the epitome of how linear time works. You never know what’s going to happen to the next pitch; will it be a ball or a strike, will it be a bunt, a base hit, fly or a home run? That feeling of a fly ball heading for the stands and an outfielder desperately trying to grab it from the air - will he make it? Will it miss his glove? It’s like only the next few seconds matter. Once we have the outcome of the hit then the game has been irrevocably set on a path. All I can do is watch to see how it unfolds.

I don’t get this feeling with any other sport. Football for me is just a bunch of blokes running around passing things - there’s no urgency in it. American Football is painful - it’s like someone took rugby and made it all about smacking into people, not using skill to get the ball, and they keep stopping for a chat. Basketball should excite me as it’s the same kind of urgency as baseball - but somehow it just doesn’t. MMA irritates me as it seems to devolve quite a lot into wrestling moves that are a few minutes of people squirming around to either keep or break a hold and for me that’s boring to watch. Women’s kickboxing is more my pace but where can I see it (hopefully free or cheap)? Please let me know if you can.

In summary - Ben Sisko was right. And I’m enjoying Taiwan baseball in a way I have not enjoyed a live sport in many years. I ended up purchasing a subscription to the CPBL TV official stream for the friendly price of NT$1,099 (£30 at time of purchase!) for the entire April - October season, plus the winter league. This gives me perfect HD footage with the local Mandarin commentary. I know about twenty words in Mandarin so I play the HD footage on one browser tab with the sound off and run the English commentary on another tab with the sound up. Sorted. While the free streams are excellent for English, the footage quality can be quite poor at times to the point where I can’t read the stats box, so the HD footage is a must for me. The official site does also have the complete schedule of games, but this is free to everyone.

So which team do I support? That also came out of the chat I had with my mate online - there are four teams in the major league this season (should be five next season), so after a joke about how me and my mate both live in the north of our respective countries, and remembering of course that lots of planets have a north, I thought it was only fitting to start looking into which team was furthest north. That is easily Fubon Guardians, whose home is Xinzhuang Baseball Stadium in New Taipei City. It wasn’t until I’d seen a few months of the season and then managed to get hold of a jersey that my mate observed their strip this year is blue, which just happens to be my favourite colour. Yes, they’re kind of the underdogs as they’ve not done particularly well this season (until August), but that’s the excitement. If you support a team that normally wins everything, then who cares? The Guardians seem to have sorted out their issues from the middle of August 2020 and are currently winning games again - not all, but it’s getting better.

And now I can name another four professional baseball players: Lee Tsung-Hsien, Chiang Chih-Hsien, Shen Hao-Wei, and Kao Kuo-Lin. Not bad, even if I do say so myself.

I guess this means everyone should find a new distraction during this pandemic. Obviously we need to ‘keep alert’ and all that, but at the same time, don’t obsess over it. Find something else to think about so that this pandemic isn’t all there is.

And that’s it. Soopytwist, everyone.

Playlist alert

I’m in the middle of a Greent Hornet fanfic just now (based on the movie, not the series so much). Why the movie, you ask? Well I’ve done a whole thing about the difference between the show and the film, and I have to say I’m still a big fan of both, for different reasons.

Back in the day, I had a dedicated writing desk (actually a repurposed Mahjong table) and a comfy chair (called Michael) and I would get through a 50,000 word fanfic in a few weeks, spend the next two polishing and fixing it, and then the next month or so releasing it like curated salmon on a few fanfic repositories. When I moved back to the UK all that went away, and I struggled to do much writing at all. However, now I’m in a new flat things just feel different. Maybe it’s the apartment atmosphere, the small, controllable environment, the solo living or the extra time not spent commuting to and from work. Hey, maybe it’s all of those things. The important thing is, I’ve finished a fic I started over 2 years ago, and right now I’m pleased - nay, EXCITED - to be working on a new one. And I haven’t been excited about writing in a long time.

As usual I have required a playlist as quiet background music - choons to subconsciously align me with subject matter, with the chosen style, with the themes. However when I had this one going round and round, the volume would creep up and I found my head was bobbing along to the music as I typed - totally oblivious, of course.

Full disclosure; I had to wait 2 weeks for BT OpenReach to actually do their job and give me wi-fi at home, so during that time I was careful with my data usage. Basically, I moved from Spotify back to my iTunes library and in doing so found that I had billions of Jay Chou albums. Well, alright, it wasn’t billions - but it was over 160 tracks from him over the years. Putting that on shuffle for a week made me miss a lot of his earlier stuff (and the frivolous Sailor songs) so by the time this fic started forming in my head, it was always going to be about those albums on constant shuffle. Of course it doesn’t hurt that he was also Kato in the movie.

Here we go then - without further ado (because considering this post was supposed to be a playlist dump, there’s a lot of ado up to this point), here is the playlist, all by Jay Chou (周杰倫):

1. 雙載棍 (Nunchucks) from the album 范特西 (Fantasy), 2001 - also the second end credits song on the movie version of Green Hornet (at least where I saw it in Hong Kong)

2. 印地安老斑鳩 (Ancient Indian Turtledove) from the album 杰倫 (Jay), 2000 

3. 忍者 (Ninja) from the album 范特西 (Fantasy), 2001

4. 龍拳 (Dragon Fist) from the album 八度空間 (The Eight Dimensions), 2002

5. 半獸人 (Half Beast Half Human) from the album 八度空間 (The Eight Dimensions), 2002

6. 雙刀 (Double Blade) from the album 葉惠美 (Yeh Hui-Mei), 2003

7. 同一種調調 (Same Tone) from the album 葉惠美 (Yeh Hui-Mei), 2003 

8. 將軍 (Checkmate) from the album 七里香 (Common Jasmine Orange), 2004 

9. 霍元甲 (Fearless) from the EP 霍元甲 (Fearless), 2006

10. 陽光宅男 (Sunshine Nerd) from the album 我很忙 (On the Run!), 2007

11. 周大俠 (Master Chou) from the movie ‘Kung Fu Dunk’ (功夫灌籃) available as an extra track on the album 2007 世界巡迴演唱會 (2007 World Tour Concert) 

12. 魔術先生 (Magician) from the album 魔杰座 (Capricorn), 2008

13. 龍戰騎士 (Dragon Rider) from the album 魔杰座 (Capricorn), 2008

14. 免費教學錄影帶 (Free Tutorial Video) from the album 跨時代 (The Era), 2010

15. 公主病 (Princess Syndrome) from the album 驚嘆號 (Wow!), 2011

16. 驚嘆號 (Wow!) from the album 驚嘆號 (Wow!), 2011

17. 比較大的大提琴 (A Larger Cello) from the album 12新作 (Opus 12), 2012

18. 公公偏頭痛 (Eunuch With a Headache) from the album 12新作 (Opus 12), 2012

19. 水手怕水 (Sailor Afraid of Water) from the album 驚嘆號 (Wow!), 2011

20. 烏克麗麗 (Ukulele) from the album 12新作 (Opus 12), 2012

21. 大笨鐘 (Big Ben) from the album 12新作 (Opus 12), 2012

22. 陽眀山 (Yang Ming Mountain) from the album 哎呦，不錯哦 (Hey, Not Bad), 2014

23. 我要夏天 (I Want Summer) from the album 哎呦，不錯哦 (Hey, Not Bad), 2014

24. 說走就走 (Let’s Go) from the album 周杰倫的床邊故事 (Jay Chou’s Bedtime Stories), 2016

25. 英雄 (Hero) from the album 周杰倫的床邊故事 (Jay Chou’s Bedtime Stories), 2016

26. 土耳其冰𣾁淋 (Turkish Ice Cream) from the album 周杰倫的床邊故事 (Jay Chou’s Bedtime Stories), 2016

27. Now You See Me from the album 周杰倫的床邊故事 (Jay Chou’s Bedtime Stories), 2016

There we go. Seeing these written down makes me want to go listen to them all over again.

You know what? I think I will. That’s the beauty of being an adult; no-one can stop me.

Soopytwist.

Moving On, 2020

Yep, I’ve moved again. Yesterday, in fact. From an end-of-terrace house to a second-floor flat.

It’s ace. It’s a long, wide studio flat with two massive skylights and three large windows which means you get sun all day from varying angles - and sun means WARM. Honestly, the carpet is trying to radiate its own heat from the sun patches that move across the floor. It’s fantastic. I know it’s June but when it’s only 15 degrees outside you need all the direct sunshine you can get. On top of the heat there’s that fact that the bathroom as big as my old bedroom (which was big, by the way).

I don’t know the neighbourhood other than ‘it’s good’ (my work colleagues were happy with the location, and they’ve lived locally for over twenty years). However, what I have noticed is the high, nay excessive, number of carry-outs and off-licences. Add to that a very large famous supermarket brand being five minutes’ walk away and I’m pretty happy with it. Oh, and did I mention, it’s a five-minute drive from work. Yes, I know that means I can walk it. I haven’t got round to checking a walking route yet, give me chance.

Sunday was a slog, I’m not going to lie. Half the day packing up my life was torture - I hate packing anyway, and this was pretty much 90% of what I own. The other 10% is about to go to a charity shop, so more than one good thing has come of it all. The removals people turned up on time Monday, they were fast, friendly and cheerful, and my stuff was loaded up in less than half an hour. We hit the road and barely three hours after they’d first arrived, they were off again. I was left staring round at a mish-mash of boxes and disassembled furniture, wondering where to start.

As with all moves, I went with priorities. The bed was assembled first, then the bookcases. The rest of it was literally unpacking stuff and emptying the total of nine boxes (yes, I fitted my entire life apart from furniture into nine cardboard boxes).

And so here we are, having moved in yesterday. Pictures have been hung, TVs and all things entertainment have been set back up, temporary work-from-home stations are sorted again and all kitchen items stored or ready to use.

Now the easy part is done, it’s time for the difficult bits. As soon as I got the keys on Friday I went about changing my address with every company that needed it. Seeing as I’m about 90% paperless, this was a formality. However it has to be done. Then I went to the BBC TV licensing page and declared I do not have the ability to watch live BBC shows on telly and therefore will not be paying a licence fee. Done.

Broadband is ordered, but due to BT being arseholes, their OpenReach will not be performing my installation on behalf of my provider for another fourteen days, because they prioritise their own BT customers first. Fair enough, you might say - but wait. The only people who can physically do installations to any lines is BT OpenReach, so not at all fair, and in fact the definition of ‘monopoly’. Someone should really complain about that. Oh wait - EE, Virgin, and everyone else already have. We’ll wait and see if that means that OpenReach is forced to splinter from BT and become independent in the installation stakes, I suppose. Don’t hold your breath.

Utilities. Fighting to get my name on the utilities bills has been really draining. Sent round and round websites because they can’t man the phones due to coronavirus, trying apps that demand a customer or account number (which I don’t have), trying to open an account and being told there’s no-one to answer the phone and to use the app which tells you to cal - it’s doing my head in. Finally I realised that all I had to do was use the contact form and use the option ‘cannot pay my bill’. It didn’t ask why, after all, it was just an option. Well I can’t physically pay my bill because they don’t know to send me one, so yeah, I can’t pay my bill. I’ve already had an acknowledgement email from each utility asking me to bear with them and they’ll get in touch shortly, so I guess I got their attention.

Been to the Chinese supermarket and done a Big Shop (including a new wok that I’ll be seasoning this very afternoon) and even got a supermarket delivery booked for tomorrow night. I guess they want more deliveries than they do people in store, so hey, it’s all good.

May take a walk around the neighbourhood later just to see what’s what, and also check out where the nearest bottle shops are. It pays to know their opening times for when the supermarket has a queue due to social distancing.

And that’s pretty much all there is. One day when I look back at June 2020, this post will be in the list, and that’s a good thing.

Soopytwist.

Image by Bob Hopley from Pixabay

Lockdown

Not, unfortunately, the stellar (sorry) Guy Pierce 2012 film Lockout, which is just a fantastic old-fashioned 1980s survival in a prison (a space prison) flick with guns, violence, snarky one-liners and brilliantly acted stereotypes all round. No, sadly not that Lockout.

Instead it’s now been seven weeks since I’ve worked from my actual work desk, and three weeks since I’ve left the house. And by that I mean I have not crossed the threshold of any doors to be away from the touch of indoor flooring.

Everyone keeps asking - “how are you holding up?”. And my reply is always the same: “has anything changed?”


I mean yes, obviously some things have changed. I don’t go to the pictures on Saturday and then meet up with mates afterwards to talk about it. I don’t go to the Chinese supermarket one Sunday a month to stock up on food. I don’t go to the archery range. I don’t drive to work. Other than that…? Nah, nothing’s changed.

I don’t have kids, pets, or anything that distracts me. What I do have is Doom Eternal on PS4, along with other games I’m still battling through. I have Netflix and Amazon Prime, I have Kodi and Hong Kong dramas (The Exorcist’s 2nd Meter is on - finally we have the sequel to The Exorcist’s Meter!). I have a Lethal Weapon fanfiction story that I’m halfway through posting, and I’ve embarked on a 21 day yoga shred class online. And did I forget to mention, I’m still working, just from the kitchen table. So yeah, I’m pretty busy and I don’t need to go out. My housemate is also still working, but their essential worker status means that they can stop off at a supermarket on the way home and pick up bits and pieces.

Also, I work in payroll (for the NHS, no less), so what with April being a perfect storm of all the statutory and contractual changes no-one in ops wants, it’s been a full-on, fifty-hour week for four weeks for pretty much the entire team. We’ve been given time off in lieu, so it’s not really a big deal for me, but for others with dependents it’s been “a nightmare”.

The only problem I’m going to have is going back to the office when we’re finally cleared by our bosses to do so (i.e. when our healthcare professionals have assessed it and made the requisite changes, not when Boris waffles his way through saying… whatever it was he was saying on Sunday 10th March). I know a lot of people will be glad of the return - to be in a place where they feel like a professional, like they’re away from all the home distractions, out of the ‘home’ environment and into a work headspace. I get it - in words. I don’t feel it, but I understand what they mean. And then there are those who don’t work in office jobs and will have been itching to get back to work for the last month anyway.

Everyone seems uptight and upset that they’re being told to stay home. Everyone else seems to be getting cabin fever. I’ve just woken up one day, been told to collect my kit from work and then go home until further notice, get on MS Teams when I’m working and that’s that. I just kind of went “so this is how it is now” and got on with it. There wasn’t any drama to be had - it just happened and we dealt with it like grown-ups. Others in the team had some IT hiccups and others have been trying to balance kids and dinner-time and all kinds of trials and tribulations. I don’t have those. I sit down, open up all the apps and emails and everything else, look at the list of stuff I didn’t finish yesterday, and get to work. I don’t see the difference between doing that at work and doing that at my kitchen table.

I’m happy that I don’t have to mix with humans, that I can get on and do my job without being interrupted by co-workers asking if I want to go for a brew, or having to put shoes on (I find it hard to sit on chairs ‘properly’ and often end up folding my legs under the table, which is hard to do with Doc Martens on).

Going back to an office environment is going to be very hard.

But then, what with major companies now wondering why they’re paying rent or a bank loan for sprawling offices in the real world when they could just let their office staff keep a laptop and stay away, I wonder what changes are coming.

Was it not Captain Jack Harkness who said that “the 21st century is when everything changes”? Is this what he meant? Where leaders of large, influential countries have gone off the rails (some would argue that they were never really on them in the first place) and caused nearly 80,000 deaths at this point? Where still others are trying to impose their brand of order on a territory handed back to them twenty-odd years ago, despite the entire population being against it and willing to stand in tear gas and water cannon to prove it? With this new pandemic hitting the globe and reminding everyone how everyone really is connected whether they like it or not, is this when everything finally starts to shift? Pollution from fossil-fuel traffic in a lot of cities has started to ease up - because of people not using those vehicles. One retired army captain (now a colonel) in the UK has raised more for NHS Charities in a few weeks than most people will ever raise in their lifetime - in a team. People are reaching out over social media, children are receiving tweets and replying by old-fashioned letter-writing. Others are holding street parties from behind their fences. Still more are coming out onto their doorsteps to celebrate the NHS on a Thursday night with songs, clapping, and banging pots and pans. Caremongering is becoming a thing - people helping others to get their grocery shopping, to post a letter, to connect and keep their sanity. All signs are pointing toward a feeling of unity, of wanting to help.

And yet.

And yet.

We have brainless, self-obsessed presidents telling the masses the most baseless, misinformed and dangerous things - and nearly half the country are still listening to him. We have others over-buying and stocking up on household items so that they can sell those items for a profit. People think they can get away with behaving like Nazis again. There are people deliberately scamming others using miracle cures and snake oil replacements for this virus. There are news outlets deliberately spreading lies and paranoia, to widen the gap between classes, between minorities, between neighbours, between humans. The top ten multi-billionaires just keep getting richer, earning more per day than they could spend in a month, and apparently happy to keep it that way despite the people all around them living on food stamps, foods banks, charity hand-outs and poverty.

This is what we are as a species. We are opposite ends of the spectrum, in all things. The only thing wrong with that is how far apart those ends actually are. It’s ok that everyone believes different things, it’s ok that everyone feels differently, acts differently, has a different perspective. This is essential for humans to survive. What’s not ok is how some seek to stop others from being allowed to be the difference. Some leaders need to be impeached (or just removed forcibly with a blunt object), some leaders need to realise the way their country has been run for the past few generations just isn’t going to work any more - times have changed and not changing with them is not how evolution or progress works. Some people need to get a heart, or at least hire someone who has one and then take their advice. I am the last person to say they know anything about empathy or feelings, but even I can stand back and work out what is beneficial and what isn’t to a society as a whole. When you work toward controlling a population instead of serving them, you’ve already lost the game.

Anyway.

Some good news to lighten the mood: NASA is going back to the Moon. To date, one person has definitely been cured of HIV, and while science is struggling to replicate the how, they’re getting closer every day. Volvo is looking to get into the Tesla bracket of electric cars - meaning the battle is now on (properly) for better, longer-ranging batteries and smaller price tags. And on that note, the production of energy from renewable sources is literally terawatts ahead of anything it’s ever been before. Wind farms alone are making an impact on the amount of energy we have to import, including Russian coal and Norwegian oil.

When all this covid thing is over, and everyone goes back to work in stages, it’s not the lockdown or the whinging or the team spirit I’m going to remember. It’s the good movies I’ve seen, the comic books I’ve read, the stories I’ve written and the courses I’ve done. I’ve let myself watch more on Netflix and it’s resulted in me seeing some very good series I wouldn’t normally have tried out. I’ve gone for that yoga course even though I don’t understand yoga (you can still go through the motions like you mean it, though). I’ve had a whale of a time in the rip and tear moments of Doom Eternal and I’ve got my highest scores ever on the arcade levels of Doom 2016.

I know all around me people have been losing their shit and things have been going off the rails, but for me life’s been pretty good. As an INTJ who really isn’t here for Human Drama, I have to say I’ve been enjoying this lockdown as a chance to stay away from people. If there was a way for it to continue, without the horrific deaths or riots or protests (against people trying to keep them alive? Fine. Let them die) then I’m all for it. We just need to beat this virus and make something new out of what comes next. And if a majority doesn’t get rid of the orange-faced buffoon spewing arse-gravy on the daily when next they vote, then we may just have to call on the SAS to do everyone a huge fucking favour.

You’ll be glad to know that that’s it for today, folks. Rant over - time for more good telly.

Soopytwist.

Final image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

The 39th Hong Kong Film Awards (2020) - the winners

Well the Hong Kong Film Awards has come and gone this morning (8am in the UK, 3pm in HK) - a staggering 12 minutes of screentime, compared to the grand affairs of 2 hours plus, in previous years.

Even with the current pandemic keeping everything online (and streaming their awards ceremonies on Facebook), I still expected something longer and grander than a seemingly quick reading of the envelopes one by one by chairman Mr Derek Yee Tung-Sing. Still, we got the results and some of us were very happy. Me? A little disappointed, but hey, I’m not on the voting committee.

So who won what then? Here we go - a full run-down. Winners are in yellow.

最佳電影 
Best Film

1. 少年的你 Better Days

2. 叔‧叔 Suk Suk

3. 花椒之味 Fagara

4. 麥路人 i’m livin’ it

5. 新喜劇之王 The New King of Comedy




最佳導演
 Best Director

1. 曾國祥（少年的你）Derek Tsang Kwok-Cheung (Better Days)

2. 周冠威（幻愛）Kiwi Chow (Beyond the Dream)

3. 楊曜愷（叔‧叔）Ray Yeung (Suk Suk)

4. 麥曦茵（花椒之味）Heiward Mak (Fagara)

5. 葉偉信（葉問4完結篇）Yip Wai Shun (Ip Man 4 The Finale)

最佳編劇
 Best Screenplay

1. 林詠琛、李媛、許伊萌（少年的你）Lam Wing Sum, Li Yuan, Xu Yimeng (Better Days)

2. 曾俊榮、周冠威（幻愛）Felix Tsang, Kiwi Chow (Beyond the Dream)

3. 楊曜愷（叔‧叔）
Ray Yeung (Suk Suk)

4. 麥曦茵（花椒之味）Heiward Mak (Fagara)

5. 黃綺琳（金都）Norris Wong Yee Lam (My Prince Edward)


最佳男主角 
Best Actor

1. 易烊千璽（少年的你）Jackson Yee (Better Days)

2. 古天樂（犯罪現場）Louis Koo (A Witness Out of the Blue)

3. 太保（叔‧叔）Tai Bo (Suk Suk)

4. 朱栢康（金都）Chu Pak Hong (My Prince Edward)

5. 郭富城（麥路人）Aaron Kwok (i’m livin’ it)

最佳女主角
Best Actress

1. 周冬雨（少年的你）Zhou Dongyu (Better Days)

2. 蔡思韵（幻愛）Cecilia Choi (Beyond the Dream)

3. 鄭秀文（花椒之味）Sammi Cheng (Fagara)

4. 鄧麗欣（金都）Stephy Tang (My Prince Edward)

5. 鄭秀文（聖荷西謀殺案）Sammi Cheng (Fatal Visit) 


最佳男配角 
Best Supporting Actor

1. 姜皓文（犯罪現場）Philip Keung (A Witness Out of the Blue)

2. 盧鎮業（叔‧叔）Lo Chun Yip (Suk Suk)

3. 張達明（麥路人）Cheung Tat Ming (i’m livin’ it)

4. 萬梓良（麥路人）Alex Man (i’m livin’ it)

5. 張琪（新喜劇之王）Zhang Qi (The New King of Comedy)
 


最佳女配角 
Best Supporting Actress

1. 區嘉雯（叔‧叔）Patra Au Ga Man (Suk Suk)

2. 賴雅妍（花椒之味）Megan Lai (Fagara)

3. 鮑起靜（金都）Paw Hee Ching (My Prince Edward)

4. 劉雅瑟（麥路人）Cya Liu (i’m livin’ it)

5. 蔡卓妍（聖荷西謀殺案）Charlene Choi (Fatal Visit)

最佳新演員 
Best New Performer

1. 易烊千璽（少年的你）Jackson Yee (Better Days)

2. 劉俊謙（幻愛）Lau Chun Him (Beyond the Dream)

3. 區嘉雯（叔‧叔）Patra Au Ga Man (Suk Suk)

4. 鄂靖文（新喜劇之王）E Jingwen (The New King of Comedy)

5. 李宛妲（葉問4完結篇）Vanda Margraf (Ip Man 4 The Finale)

最佳攝影
 Best Cinematography

1. 余靜萍（少年的你）Yu Jing Pin (Better Days)

2. 司徒一雷（幻愛）Szeto Yat Lui (Beyond the Dream)

3. 謝忠道（犯罪現場）Kenny Tse Chung-To (A Witness Out of the Blue)

4. 葉紹麒（花椒之味）S.K. Yip (Fagara)

5. 鄭兆強（葉問4完結篇）Cheng Siu Keung (Ip Man 4 The Finale)

最佳剪接
 Best Film Editing

1. 張一博（少年的你）Zhang Yibo (Better Days)

2. 羅永昌、鄒耀衡（犯罪現場）
Law Wing Cheong, Kelvin Chau (A Witness Out of the Blue)

3. 張叔平、陳序慶（叔‧叔）
William Chang Suk Ping, Nose Chan Chui Hing (Suk Suk)

4. 張叔平、鍾家駿（金都）
William Chang Suk Ping, Peter Chung (My Prince Edward)

5. 張嘉輝（葉問4完結篇）Cheung Ka Fai (Ip Man 4 The Finale) 


最佳美術指導
 Best Art Direction

1. 梁鴻鵠（少年的你）Liang Honghu (Better Days)

2. 陳七（犯罪現場）Chet Chan (A Witness Out of the Blue)

3. 張兆康（花椒之味）Cheung Siu Hong (Fagara)

4. 文念中、利國林（麥路人）Man Lim Chung, Billy Li Kwok Lam (i’m livin’ it)

5. 麥國強（葉問4完結篇）Mak Kwok Keung (Ip Man 4 The Finale)

最佳服裝造型設計
 Best Costume & 
Makeup Design

1. 吳里璐（少年的你）Dora Ng (Better Days)

2. 潘燚森（叔‧叔）Albert Poon Yick Sum (Suk Suk)

3. 張兆康（花椒之味）Cheung Siu Hong (Fagara)

4. 文念中、陳寶欣（麥路人）Man Lim Chung, Polly Chan Po Yan (i’m livin’ it)

5. 利碧君（葉問4完結篇）Lee Pik Kwan (Ip Man 4 The Finale) 


最佳動作設計 
Best Action 
Choreography

1. 黃偉亮（犯罪現場）Jack Wong (A Witness Out of the Blue)

2. 錢嘉樂、錢家班、黃偉輝、鄧瑞華、吳海堂（使徒行者2諜影行動）
Chin Ka Lok, Ka Lok Stunt Team, Wong Wai Fai, Tang Sui Wa, Thomson Ng (Line Walker 2)

3. 董瑋（征途）Stephen Tung (Double World)

4. 韓平、吳海堂（掃毒2天地對決）
Hon Ping, Gobi Ng (The White Storm 2 Drug Lords)

5. 袁和平（葉問4完結篇）Yuen Wo Ping (Ip Man 4 The Finale)

最佳原創電影音樂
 Best Original Film Score

1. 貝爾（少年的你）Varqa Buehrer (Better Days)

2. 波多野裕介（花椒之味）Yusuke Hatano (Fagara)

3. 林二汶（金都）Eman Lam (My Prince Edward)

4. 金培達（麥路人）Peter Kam (i’m livin’ it)

5. 川井憲次（葉問4完結篇）Kenji Kawai (Ip Man 4 The Finale)

最佳原創電影歌曲
 Best Original Film Song

1. Fly（少年的你）(Better Days)


作曲：盧凱彤 Composer：Ellen Joyce Loo

填詞：盧凱彤、吳青峰 Lyricist：Ellen Joyce Loo, Wu Qing Feng

主唱：岑寧兒 Vocal Artist：Yoyo Sham 



2. 好好說（花椒之味）Say It Properly (Fagara)


作曲、填詞：伍棟賢 Composer, Lyricist：Tonyi Ng


主唱：鄭秀文 Vocal Artist：Sammi Cheng 



3. 金都（金都）My Prince Edward (My Prince Edward)


作曲：林二汶 Composer：Eman Lam


填詞：黃綺琳 Lyricist：Norris Wong Yee Lam


主唱：鄧麗欣 Vocal Artist：Stephy Tang



4. 兄弟不懷疑（掃毒2天地對決） Brotherhood (The White Storm 2 Drug Lords)


作曲：蔡曉恩 Composer：Jacky Cai


填詞：劉德華 Lyricist：Andy Lau


主唱：劉德華、古天樂 Vocal Artist：Andy Lau, Louis Koo 



5. 灰色星塵（麥路人）(i’m livin’ it)


作曲：金培達 Composer：Peter Kam


填詞：小美 Lyricist：Siu May


主唱：郭富城 Vocal Artist：Aaron Kwok 


最佳音響效果 
Best Sound Design

1. Victor Ray Ennis（中國機長）(The Captain)

2. 杜篤之、吳書瑤（幻愛）Tu Dou-Chih, Wu Shu-Yao (Beyond the Dream)

3. 杜篤之、江宜真（花椒之味）Tu Dou-Chih, Chiang Yi Chen (Fagara)

4. 聶基榮、葉兆基（掃毒2天地對決）Nip Kei Wing, Ip Siu Kei (The White Storm 2 Drug Lords)

5. 李耀強、姚俊軒（葉問4完結篇）Lee Yiu Keung George, Yiu Chun Hin (Ip Man 4 The Finale)

最佳視覺效果
 Best Visual Effects

1. 潘國瑜（中國機長）Ellen Poon (The Captain)

2. 譚啟昆、吳家龍、鍾家豪、楊起超（使徒行者2諜影行動）Tam Kai Kwan, Ng Ka Lung, Chung Kar Hau, Yeung Hey Chiu (Line Walker 2)

3. 徐建、魏明、李帥（征途）Eric Xu, Allen Wei, Li Shuai (Double World)

4. 黃宏達（烈火英雄）Victor Wong (The Bravest)

5. 余國亮、馬肇富、梁偉民、何文洛（掃毒2天地對決） Yee Kwok Leung, Ma Siu Fu, Leung Wai Man, Ho Man Lok (The White Storm 2 Drug Lords)

新晉導演
 Best New Director

1. 文偉鴻（使徒行者2諜影行動）Jazz Boon (Line Walker 2)

2. 黃綺琳（金都）Norris Wong Yee Lam (My Prince Edward)

3. 黃慶勳（麥路人）Wong Hing Fan (i’m livin’ it)

4. 梁國斌（獅子山上）Leung Kwok Pun Nick (Lion Rock)

5. 卓翔（戲棚）Cheuk Cheung (Bamboo Theatre)

最佳亞洲華語電影
 Best Asian Chinese
Language Film

1. 大象席地而坐 An Elephant Sitting Still

2. 返校 Detention

3. 影 Shadow

So there we have it. I didn’t see a win for Aaron Kwok and not nearly enough for Ip Man 4, but I’m shallow like that.

A fantastic 8 wins for Better Days（少年的你）from 11 nominations. I was trying to find a copy of it before the awards - now I think I should try harder.

That’s it from me. Have fun in lockdown, and I’ll be back soon.

Peach and lube, everyone, peach and lube.

Nostalgia vs NOTstalgia part I: the Homework

Recently I was talking about Jay Chou 周杰倫 with a colleague at work - basically saying he’s the best classical-music-Chinese-traditional-new-wave-rapper she’s never heard of. Unsurprising really, as he records in Mandarin for the Taiwan market (however, he’s also kind of a big deal around southeast Asia and parts of the US).

On the back of this it made me miss the 2011 big-screen remake of The Green Hornet as he stars as Kato. I pulled this out and watched it again and, all over again, enjoyed it for the fun and frolics and basic Charlie’s-Angel’s-2000-with-Boys feel to it. I know lots of people hated it or derided it for the way it dumbed-down the character of Britt Reid - and it was never going to have Bruce Lee in it. While it did make Reid out to be a major dumbass who actually needs the Hornet Gun, it also expanded on Lenore Case’s role so that she wasn’t just coming into the office to tell Reid some plot is going down. On balance, not a bad thing. It also showed what Kato actually did - yes, he made a coffee machine, but now he was also a gadgets whizz who could sketch schematics and make them himself, reworking polycarbonate (the stuff they make shark tanks out of) into car windshields, turning everything bullet-proof and adding proper Ben Hur tyre rippers to the nice custom wheels. He had lines, a role, a real life - even a back story. From the streets of Shanghai to the fabulous mansion of one James Reid newspaper mogul, Kato was now a modern American success story.

To be honest, I had never seen any Bruce Lee TV work as it’s so hard to get hold of, so part of me wondered what the original 60s version had been like. The way people were whaling on the 2011 movie, you’d think it was shitting on Desilu Studios’ Star Trek. So what was all the fuss about? Had the original really been that good? It was time to find a copy of the original 1966 Green Hornet and find out.

First of all - some context. Imagine it’s 1966. Well I know you can’t do that - I can’t do that as I was born in the 70s. So let’s instead imagine your choice of TV that night. The British series Doctor Who had already been on the BBC in England for three years (in black and white), however it would be another six before it would be shown on US television. The high-camp, high-colour crowd-pleaser Batman had exploded on the scene and was doing pretty ok. Bonanza and The Andy Griffith Show were going strong, Lucille Ball was at it again with the very successful The Lucy Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show was still winning Emmys, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was still charming audiences, and more and more US TV watchers had colour television sets and wanted more Technicolor content.

Where did the Green Hornet fit in? To begin with, this wasn’t his first disco. He was originally a radio drama that started in 1936, after George W. Trendle wanted to add another proper fun, righteous radio serial to the airwaves alongside the successful The Lone Ranger (interesting fact: the Green Hornet was the grandnephew of the Lone Ranger, hence the similar eye-mask). Arriving full-fleshed out and with built-in audience awareness, the series wasn’t the massive hit the network wanted but it did well enough, being syndicated to all parts of the States and beyond - in the early 1970s it was playing in Hong Kong where the voracious TV audience referred to it as ‘The Kato Show’, for obvious reasons. However back at home in the US it ran for one season of twenty-six episodes before it was cancelled by its parent the ABC network.

In that time it had had a few crossovers with Batman (I remember seeing a rerun of this when I was about seven or eight - Batman and Robin are ‘climbing’ up the side of a building, as you do, and Kato and the Hornet open one of the windows and stick their heads out as they go past. I remember asking my Dad who the heads were, as I got the feeling I was supposed to know them and get some kind of joke. He said they were from ‘another famous TV show at the time - the name escapes me’) and although it continued to bring in viewers, the ratings declined and eventually the inevitable happened. Interesting to note is that Van Williams, the superhero-chinned, charming lead who played Britt Reid, was constantly pushing for Kato to have more airtime and more lines (sometimes he was lucky to get three lines an episode). The network refused - Kato was not white American, and besides, splitting airtime that only ran to twenty-eight minutes anyway would take focus off the star. If they had let Kato speak a bit more, and use more of his innate talent for beating the crap out of henchmen and villains, perhaps the show would have had a second season. But who knows, eh? The path not taken.

This brings us to the show itself; was it any good? Everyone looks back at things past with rose-tinted glasses - but I’d never seen it in the first place. What would I, who grew up on 80s TV, reruns of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., comics, superheroes and spy films, make of it in today’s climate?

In the best traditions of the old-fashioned serials (and today’s arc-for-a-season Netflix bingeing), you’ll have to wait until the next post to find out. Gotcha!

Soopytwist.

Meet-ups

I moved to Manchester a little over a year ago. All my friends are in the South or in other countries. This can make you feel somewhat frustrated; you want to go do that thing you like but the people who would have gone with you are not here. Logical choice, then: go on your own or find other people to go with.

I’ve been going on my own for a year. It’s comfortable, and nice, and agreeable to be able to do what you want when you want without constraints. But, as any writer or reader will tell you, conflict causes plot. Without conflict you have no story.

I joined a meet-up app. It lists tonnes and tonnes of interest groups you can join - crocheting, hiking, learning another language, brunch for chats and bants, movies - anything where you need more than one person to make it a thing.

Anyone who knows me also knows that as an INTJ I don’t choose to mix with people because they are People©, and I don’t like People©. Like K says, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it”. However, when you aren’t beholden to anyone else, you can choose to go see a movie but when you wake up and it’s cold outside, you choose to sack it off as a bad job because, well, you can.

I’m also not good at plans. I mean, I can make plans and I can stick to them, but only when it’s at work or with someone else involved - because if there’s one thing I try to achieve it’s to do what I say I will. If I tell you a project will be ready for Friday, then it’ll be ready for Friday. If I tell you I’ll sort something by 4pm, then I’ll sort it by 4pm. However, when I tell myself I’m going to watch a movie on Saturday, I get to that point 2 hours before it starts, check the bus timetable, and then decide I can’t be arsed. I back out. Because at that moment when I made the plan, I believed I was going to follow it through. But now I’m bored and restless, now I can’t make myself do it.

I joined the app. I found a movie club. I like movies a lot and it’s my escape, so why not? However, every movie that has come up as a group + social meet-up afterwards has been a film I’ve either already seen or have no wish to see. Cinema tickets are relatively cheap in the city centre (£5 at the Vue, Printworks, or £6 at Odeon Great Northern, compared to my old Cineworld Poole of £10.95) so I can get an all-day bus ticket and a film for the same price as a cinema ticket where I used to live. Down there I had a Cineworld Unlimited card, so for about £17.50 a month I could see a boundless amount of movies. I only had to watch 2 a month and I’d saved money. However up here, when the tickets are £5-£6, there’s no point getting an Odeon card for £20 a month - and especially as half the time the foreign language films I want are only on at the Vue, not Odeon anyway.

I digress.

I joined the app and finally, yesterday, I made myself go to one. We saw Knives Out, the Rian Johnson comedy whodunnit, which wasn’t really a comedy and not actually a whodunnit - review in another post. Afterwards we went to the official rendez-vous bar; the organiser reserves tables for us and we pile in and drink, dissect the movie or just get pie and chat about other things entirely.

As a format, it’s a great concept. It’s like renting friends for the night - and then when you find the same people turn up to each movie, they aren’t rent-a-friends but actual movie going friends. And eventually, you’ve accomplished things to solve the problem you first started out with: you now have friends you can call to see films or do something else related, and you still get to see films and talk about them with people who share your want to do so.

That was my first meet-up and I’m calling it a success. While it was brass monkey weather outside, and the bus ride home gave me shoulder/neck problems because I hunched into my three layers plus a weather-proof jacket and scarf, the day was a success and I find myself actually looking forward to the next one. It’s probably next Saturday, so it’s all good.

And that’s all the news that’s fit to print. Now to do all the usual Sunday things like cleaning, the washing and making work dinners for the coming week.

Peach and lube, people. Peach and lube.

Klaatu barada nikto

Just something I noticed while rewatching Convergence, a much under-rated paranormal / crime / thriller / slice of life drama from 2015.

Here we have the stellar Clayne Crawford in the lead role of Detective Ben Walls, wearing a t-shirt the actor brought to set and thought he'd slip into the movie:

The movie is a solid 8/10 on my scale, and this is the second time I've watched it. You'll guess the 'twist' not far in, but that's ok because that's not the twist. Yes, it's that kind of movie.

If you've only seen Clayne Crawford in seasons 1 and 2 of Lethal Weapon then prepare yourself for a very noteworthy and un-Riggs-ish performance. I swear this actor is different in everything he's in. We'll talk about the one-sided, unfounded and disgusting hate-campaign waged against him on the set of the show, leading up to him being replaced for season three another time. I'm still too angry about it.

Anyhoo, just thought I'd remark on his choice of film trivia, and give a big thumbs up to anyone who still references the original The Day The Earth Stood Still or in fact Army of Darkness (or Evil Dead III, depending on how it's marketed in your part of the world).

Soopytwist.

Dual Permanence

Object permanence is knowing that objects continue to exist whether you can see them or not (or notice them with any of the senses). Young kids don’t have this yet, which is why they think Peek-A-Boo is the greatest thing ever. As you get older, you develop new ways of displaying object (or abstract) permanence - you know your job is still there even though this is not your rota’d or contracted day to work; you know everyone else is having to work their retail job on a Bank Holiday even though you’re going to spend the day in the garden hoping it doesn’t rain on your barbecue; you know where to find a petrol station because it’s always in the same place; you’re developing existential dread because you’re painfully aware that the climate crisis is killing everything while everyone pretends not to notice but you know it’s there waiting - the list goes on.

What about other things? What about places you’ve lived, the way of life or the feeling of being there?

If you’ve ever seen another post on this blog then you’ll know I used to live in Hong Kong. I was there for eleven years. I came back close to six years ago, and yet I can’t seem to shake the idea that this new life is permanent and it’s HK that’s ended for me.

I left for various reasons - I needed to get out, I needed a change, I needed something new. I thought I needed to get back to Blighty and relax in open spaces and enjoy the idea of working after simply flashing the HR department my passport, not sitting through interviews over and over and finally getting a work visa after weeks of struggle (other people’s experiences may vary).

However now I look at it, perhaps I just needed an extended break. I’m one of those people who work and work and don’t look up from my desk, so for three years in a row my boss had to remind me that I had holiday left and I had to take it before the end of the year, as I couldn’t carry them over. I think that may have contributed to me feeling stifled and trapped, irritated at everyone around me when it wasn’t their fault. When I rocked up back in England, it was all empty spaces, deep breaths, crystal blue, freezing skies and a month of unemployment until I could find something.

Something unwound in me. Something was gone - the frustration, the irritation, the wanting to punch the next person who jabbed me in the eye with an umbrella or trod on my foot trying to cut me off at a pedestrian intersection. I was slowly but surely letting it all go. Compounding that was the feeling that, due to being unemployed, I could just sleep an hour more, go for a walk when I wanted, enjoy the fact that I could eat late or early or whenever I wanted to go to the kitchen, and not rush around work times or frantic schedules. Yes, I was relaxing and getting used to be able to spread out again.

But over the next few years I was also immersed in the cold weather, the grey skies and freezing rain, the tepid environment and insipid, boring outlooks of people who thought driving twenty miles was a long way. Conversations I shrank from willingly; most people around me had been born and grown up in the same village or town, and had been to a city maybe once even though they owned a car. They were Small Town People, and there’s nothing wrong with that - if you’re also a Small Town Person. I don’t think I am - I realised I was bored of the tiny fishbowl I’d landed myself in and now I needed the open sea.

When my role at work was made redundant and there was no other company vacancy like-for-like they could offer me, it meant I was free to take redundancy without penalty and I could literally do anything I wanted.

The choice became obvious: back to Hong Kong, or new adventures in Manchester, England.

My friends on all sides of every ocean were quick to point out that they thought of me as an explorer, and therefore going back to somewhere I’d already been was a waste of time. I should head to Manchester, the place I was born but never really spent any time in. Live there, have fun there, see the bright lights and all-night places, go to the international events and have the chance to enjoy the multi-cultural diversity of a major city.

I did. I went through all the sorting and packing all over again - the same as I had done every time I moved to a new flat in HK. I packed my entire life into about nine cardboard boxes and hired a removals company to get them and all my furniture to Manchester. And here I am, living on the outskirts but close enough to the city so that my rent is a little lower but I can still get on a bus (a bus! The public transport works! And half of it all is electric!) to go into the proper city. There’s a Chinatown and proper shops, an eclectic mix of Boho, yuppy, down to earth, just getting by and loving life. The shops stay open when the streetlamps come on, there’s buses until midnight and trams all day and free buses to major points around the city. There’s weird and wonderful eateries and bars, allowances for all kinds of dietary requirements and faiths, there’s a welcoming vibe of just wanting everyone to sit in the same sun and drink, or eat, or listen to music or read their textbooks or holiday novels or after-work comics. When it rains people put on their coats and carry on.

It’s refreshing, it’s a sprawling yet connected place of stuff to do and things to see. There are guided walks if you want to get to know the place, there are apps for proper quiet plods around the city by yourself, there are literally so many things to do that I’ve been out about 70% of all weekends in the past ten months I’ve been here, and I’ve still barely scratched the surface.

This is what I wanted, right? This is how it should have been since the first day I got back to England, right?
Then why do I still feel like HK is just around the next corner of the street I’m on? Why does it feel like when you’re texting someone who lives 5,000 miles away but you talk so often it’s like they’re just in the next room? Why is it, when I’m watching an HK drama (I’m currently on Apple Colada) and see them walk past one of my old flats, I wonder why I didn’t see them filming when I was to-ing and fro-ing, and then I realise it’s because I don’t live there? And that’s the thing - it’s always “I don’t live there”, not “I don’t live there any more”.

Someone asked me for directions in the city a few weeks back, for a place I should know in Manchester. But before I could think I said “which one?”. Then I realised there is> only one in Manchester - the other I know is in Hong Kong. Why am I doing this when I’ve been here since November 2018 and it really should have sunk in by now that I’m here, this is where I live, this is what life is now. I’m normally pretty good at adapting to things - I got used to HK in about twelve months, I adjusted back to the UK in about the same. But perhaps I just did the superficial surviving, not an actual adjustment. I stopped calculating what items were in HK dollars as UK pounds became real to me again. I started carrying a fleece around again, knowing that the weather would only feel like eighteen degrees C when the sun was out, and as soon as it hit 4pm the temperature would start to fall off until it was barely eleven degrees by 9pm.

Perhaps I didn’t do the real adjustment; my head is still over here, I think, and to some degree so is my heart. This comes as a shock to me, as I really didn’t think I had a heart.

I know the HK I miss so bad I can taste it is gone, and it’s never coming back. It was Hong Kong between about 2006 - 2012. By the time I left in 2013, I thought I was over the place. But I think it’s like when you’re cooking and you pick up a scalding pan - it burns you and you curse about it, but years later you look at the scar and you miss the cooking part that it reminds you of. It’s like there’s an invisible, indelible mark of HK stamped on me somewhere and I’m only now realising it’s even here. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get rid of it - and I’m not even sure a day will come when I want to.

What do I do about it? The easy answer is just to return to HK. But I can’t do that, due to money, and a certain immigration case that’s been cleared but will always hang around my neck like a millstone, thanks to a certain person who is dead to me. If I won the lottery tomorrow then I would certainly try to find a way to return in time. But let’s be real here - people like me don’t win the lottery, and I will never be in a financial position to leave this country and relocate again. It’s Manchester or nothing, which is why I’m doing my best here.

I hang around Chinatown more than I should, causing me to hold onto the feeling that HK is here, just out of sight round a corner. It’s object permanence for an entire territory of Southeast Asia, and I don’t know how I’ve managed it but it’s a real place that lives in my head alongside Manchester and therefore I’m still connected to it.

I had cause to rewatch Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s pilot episode recently. And one part that I never really understood the last dozen or so times I’ve seen it stuck out to me. Well, more like poked me in the eye in painful realisation. When confronted by aliens who do not understand linear time, Starfleet Commander Ben Sisko struggles to explain that humans do the best they can day by day, because they can’t say for sure what will happen next. But the aliens are confused; if that’s true, why does he often think about and get sad over one particular memory? He is brought back to the same awful scene in his life and over and over, but when he demands to know why they keep showing it to him, they say in all innocence that they don’t control it - he brings them back to it. “You exist here,” they say, and “this is not linear.” He accepts this is true - and that a part of him will always exist in that awful moment.

I have no awful moments in HK, even including the day I was officially detained by HK Immigration (very politely and completely by the book, I might add) for forty-eight hours pending an official criminal investigation that I later completely cleared of. I have no reason to get stuck on one memory as Sisko did. Instead I think a part of me will always exist in those happy and not so happy times in HK - a conglomeration of my life there, everything rolled into one ball so that everything is touching everything else all at the same time. I can’t tease it out, I can’t separate any part of it from another, and I think that’s where anything up to half of me exists. They are memories, but they’re alive. When I’m in Manchester Chinatown and I chat with a waiter about living in Kennedy Town, we talk like we’re both still there. When we express support for the current protesters, it’s as if we’re about to attend protests and hand out bottles of water to them from the shadows in silent solidarity. But we’re not there, we’re nowhere near there - so why does it feel like we are?

Is this object permanence or just old age?