In the Wee Small Hours....

I wonder how 2013 is panning out already for others? I don't like it much so far! Husband has been laid low with a very nasty cough and cold for well over a week. I've slept on the couch in the living room for the past 4 or 5 nights to allow him the freedom to cough with required shrillness, get up, wander around, devoid of worries about disturbing his spouse. I've so far avoided the worst symptoms of whatever virussy affliction his is, though not for much longer - the tonsils are fighting a brave rearguard action, but............

Anyway, during my nights exiled to the couch I've been encouraging sleep by watching whatever movie I could find on TV until the eyes began to close automatically. There are some rather strange movies around in the dead of night! A couple of old black and white sci-fi offerings were good for a quiet laugh; then, another night brought a newer (2003) British-made movie, The Mother shown sometime between 1 and 3 am.

Oh my! I was to quickly realise why this film had been relegated to the early hours. Several scenes wouldn't have been out of place in a real porno movie. British film makers have certainly moved with the times, put the old "lay back and think of England" thing well and truly to rest.

The biggest shock was to see actress Anne Reid who I remembered last seeing in the iconic English soap opera Coronation Street, back in the late 1960s and 70s, playing the part of sensible northern gal, young mother of twins Valerie Barlow, who, after several years in the part met an untimely end, electrocuted while drying her hair with a faulty appliance. It was an unsettling leap from her portrayal of young Valerie Barlow to the 68 year old grandmother, May, who in early widowhood takes leave of her senses and sensibilities and.......well what ensues involves a young Daniel Craig playing a 30-ish Darren, carpenter and handyman (very handy, as it turned out), doing construction work on her son's swish London house.

In looking for a pic to include here I came across an article where Ms Reid, now 77, said she "wishes she had Been sexually wilder". Hmmm.....really? Now that is bravado - or would the correct term in this case be bravada?

Suffice to say that the characters and their doings in Coronation Street were always far more believable and true to life (as we knew it then) than I found the unrelievedly nasty characters and attitudes portrayed in The Mother: May's husband, son, daughter and their respective spouses. Surrounded by that lot there's little wonder May experienced a loopy turn or two: bewitched, bewildered and generally discombobulated.

Dune, showing the following night, even with its Kwisatz Haderach, Bene Gesserit, the spice Melange and giant worms proved far too tame to keep my eyes open longer than through the first hour. Last night it was an hour or so of The Day After Tomorrow, enough to give a gal nightmares - but I'd seen it before, and therefore immunised against after effects.

Meanwhile, during daylight hours, it has not been possible to go see Les Miserables at a movie theatre in a neighbouring town. I doubt we'll make it now, virussy affliction rules it seems. There'll be a DVD soon enough, 'til then I'll sink my head into the doorstop of the Les Miz book, it arrived yesterday. I read up to page 42, and to my surprise found it a pleasantly easygoing read.