Tag: Entertainment

New Cards

Entertainment

Oh, this is going to be good:

For the first time in over 85 years, Monopoly’s 16 Community Chest Cards are about to get a “long overdue” refresh, Hasbro announced Thursday.
According to the Monopoly website where players may vote, card options include rescuing a puppy to get out of jail free or being penalized for not recycling your trash.

Here are my suggestions for the new “Community Chest” cards:

     
 
 

And just for laughs, here are a few replacement “Chance” cards:

 
 

And one more update, this time to the board itself:  the “Free Parking” corner space

is replaced with another of these:

There’s no such thing as free parking anymore, and with all the new laws which keep getting added every year, your chances of breaking one and being sent to jail are a lot higher than when Monopoly was first designed.

Feel free to add your ideas in Comments.

Because That’s Why

Bad News, Business

As Britishland begins to emerge ever so slowly from its Chinkvirus lockdown foolishness, businesses are being allowed to open, one sector at a time.  Which leads to squeals like this:

Gym boss spending £20,000 a month furloughing staff slams Boris Johnson for reopening pub beer gardens before fitness centres as she asks ‘why isn’t health a priority?’

Here’s my problem with arguments like this.  Instead of arguing the unfairness of pubs opening before gyms and wanting gyms to be given preference, she should be asking why gyms and pubs shouldn’t  open at the same time.

And it’s all about the definition of “health”, isn’t it?  I for one resent the assholes who think that we should all be physically healthier — whereas there’s an equally- or even more-important “social” health, that of companionship and shared good times that would be improved by the opening of pubs.

Moreover, just from a pure numbers perspective, I bet that there are untold millions of people all over Britain lining up to go to their favorite pub — or any pub, for that matter — whereas there are only a few thousand (largely) urbanites waiting to go and hit the treadmills.  If there’s a utilitarian argument (which seems to be what the unkempt Boris Johnson is following), it’s that opening pubs will give pleasure to the greatest number of people — and that if there’s a priority, it should be to the general public rather than a relatively-small number of smug and self-satisfied health-obsessed scolds.

Here are the two arguments:  “Go to the pub and have a good time” vs. “Go to the gym because you should be fitter (unspoken:  you overweight slob).”

No prizes for guessing which argument will (and should) win, every time.

Colonial War

Africa, History

Over the years, many people have written to me asking about early South Africa, and more specifically about the Boer War (or, as the Boers called it, the Vryheidsoorlog, or [Second] War of Freedom) from 1899-1902.

A few days ago, I found an old 1992 documentary on BoobTube, and it’s not bad — only just a tad over an hour — and it covers the period quite well, and impartially.  So that’s your weekend viewing assignment.  (There will be a test.)  If any questions of history remain, write to me and I’ll put the answers up in a follow-up post next weekend, when I’ll talk about my family’s relationship to the war.

There are three books I’ve always recommended on the topic:  Rags of Glory by Stuart Cloete, and the book it’s partially based on, a campaign journal called Kommando  written by Deneys Reitz, a wartime Bitter-Ender (you’ll get that explained in the video above) who went on to become the Deputy Prime Minister of the unified South Africa.  Both are absolutely brilliant — Cloete’s book also incorporates a view of the Boer War from the British perspective, and it’s both accurate and illuminating.

The third — an actual history book — is The Boer War  by Thomas Pakenham, generally regarded as the sine qua non  of historical sources for the conflict.  Written during the late 1980s, it’s devoid of any hint of the political correctness which infests later works on the topic.

Enjoy.

Captivated, Not Trapped

Entertainment

What a lovely surprise.

I just finished watching the Scandi-cop (set in Iceland) show Trapped on BezosTV, and it’s beyond-words excellent.  The characters are quite real:  they’re like people you meet everyday — no superhero dead shots, no Clinty-style fistfights, people blundering through tragedy and triumph with a complete absence of witty one-liners — in short, just about the way real people behave.   And speaking of real, the unlikely lead character is the bearlike  Icelander Ólafur Darri Ólafsson with a truly magnificent performance.

As usual with Scandi-dramas, the story is complicated, with plenty of sub-plots which all somehow tie together in the end, but very believably.  It’s a tiny town in Iceland, after all, and it’s not surprising that everyone is somehow connected.

Don’t get me started on the setting and the scenery:  I’m still shivering.

This is not a show to be missed.  I’m going to take a break before I watch the second season so I can savor every memory of the first.  It’s that good.

Nazzo Sexy

Entertainment, Men & Women

Whenever journalists run out of material to write about, or want to give their mouths a rest from kissing Socialist politicians’ asses, they compile lists.  Here’s one featuring the “Sexiest Movies“, for example.

Now as any fule kno, “sexy” is as much in the eye of the beholder [sic]  as “taste” is when comparing, say, wines.  What causes paroxysms of delight in one may cause another to gag — such as a sweet dessert wine, a dry red wine, or seeing Rosie O’Donnell in leather.

My apologies… give me a moment, here:

Anyway, I think I’ve made my point.  Here are the movies adjudged “most sexy” by whatever people answered the survey:

I must admit I haven’t seen all of them, but let me state that homo / lesbo movie sex scenes do nothing for me — they turn me on about as much as watching animals mate on NatGeo TV shows  — which eliminate some from the list altogether.

I am likewise uninterested in movies whose aim is to seduce an underage virgin girl (or boy), which takes care of Cruel Intentions, American Beauty  and Notes On A Scandal, none of which are sexy other than for prurient interest.  (Also Lolita:  the movies and the novel.)

I think we need to define what constitutes a sexy movie:  one raunchy scene (e.g. Basic Instinct ), a whole bunch of nudity with some sex (Eyes Wide Shut ) or explicit sex scenes.

Let me clear the latter out of the way first:  9 Songs, Gaspar Noël’s Love  and Catherine Breillat’s Romance  and Anatomy of Hell  (French:   Anatomie de l’enfer ) are pretty much just bonkfests all the way through.  (The last three are also, whether by design or by mistake, among the most depressing movies ever made, and 9 Songs isn’t far behind.  You have been warned.)  Shows that have sex as the central theme are seldom sexy, which is why 50 Shades  and Secretary, for example, are terribly unsexy.  (I thought Secretary  was funny, which just shows my taste.)  If you’re going to watch a movie just for sex, rent Oui Girls,  Up ‘N Coming or The Young Like It Hot  and have done with it.

As for the rest:  the Jack Nicholson version of The Postman Always Rings Twice  is sexier than any of the movies on the list, as is Dennis Quaid’s The Big Easy  (Ellen Barkin:  “I haven’t ever had any luck when it comes to sex.”  Dennis Quaid:  “Well, chère, your luck’s about to change.”)

I haven’t seen Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona  because I’m not a huge fan of his movies, but I’ve been told that it’s brilliant — unlike all his other stuff except Midnight In Paris, which is — so I’ve put it on The List.

So there you have it:  twelve of the thirteen “sexiest” movies fail the Kim Test for sexy.  Whether that says more about me than it does the respondents, I’ll leave up to you.

Spoilsports

Drive Time

Some time back, I noted with glee (here and here) that the NY-LA Cannonball record was repeatedly smashed during lockdown.

The Cannonball Race (UK version) runs from Land’s End in Cornwall to John O’Groats in Scotland (and vice-versa), and its record too has come under pressure recently.

The response of the British Filth (that’s cops, not Guardian readers) has been typically humorless:

Thomas Davies, 29, drove from Land’s End in Cornwall to John O’Groats in Scotland in September 2017, in what he said was the fastest ever land time of nine-and-a-half hours.
He is said to have flown through 50 cameras and past 15 police constabularies, and hit only one red light – all without getting a single ticket despite an average speed of almost 90mph.
But Davies, of Corwen in North Wales, is now on trial charged with two counts of dangerous driving in a specially adapted Audi S5 with a 4.2 litre VA engine and for having an additional fuel tank in his boot.
He is also accused of perverting the course of justice for using false registration plates, displaying false number plates to avoid speed traps, and kitting out his Audi with speed-trap detectors discovered in a police raid.

So here we have a situation where Brit Ultra-Woke F1 champion driver Lewis Hamilton is in line for a knighthood for driving very fast, while Our Hero above is getting crushed by the “justice” system for doing the same thing, albeit under admittedly different conditions.

As for the charges:  every single one comes courtesy of legislation and regulation stemming from the efforts of the busybody Safety Nazis Of Britain (SNOBs) because They Know What’s Good For You and They’re Doing It For Your Own Good.

I know what they (and their US counterparts) are good for, and it involves stocks, whips, and nooses.

No doubt someone’s going to have a problem with this suggestion.

The takeaway from all this, of course, is that if you’re going to break some record that isn’t blessed by The Powers That Be, shut up about it.  Which really sucks, as record-breakers deserve all the acclaim they get — just not from the Fuzz.