In a long-ago post (worth a read, BTW) I bemoaned the fact that my age-addled brain is having difficulty telling people apart. Now there’s a new one:
Left: Oz actor Hugh Jackman, and right: Brit actor Richard Armitage. I was watching The Stranger* on Netflix the other night, and when Armitage first appeared onscreen I thought that Jackman had given up X-Men and was getting into Brit TV roles.
*Kim’s ranking: 5 out of 10 because the plot has more gaping holes than the 10pm dockside shift during Fleet Week.
Needless to say, I’ve never watched a single minute of the Brit TV show Love Island, in which (I think) a bunch of single people are thrown together in a closed-off environment to see which of them will pair off and find “love” — after bonking like bunnies, no doubt. (My Brit friends tell me it’s as bad as it sounds, maybe worse.) But that’s not why I’m talking about the stupid thing; this is.
One of the contestants was recently revealed to be [gasp] a keen big game hunter, and has had several photos published of him posed next to some dead animal or other. Needless to say, in today’s culture, that makes him Literally Hitler or some such bullshit, and there have been calls for him to be tossed off the show — curiously, considering that the show revolves around wholesale fornication, he should be fired as an “issue of morality”.
So promiscuous sex is okay, but hunting is streng verboten? Got it.
Michael Carroll scooped the £9.7 million lottery jackpot in 2002 from a £1 ticket.
He gave £4 million to his family before blowing the rest on cocaine, vodka, and brothels – and he claims to have bedded 4,000 women.
Began to run out of money in 2005 and appeared in court over 30 times.
Described how his lavish lifestyle was ‘the best ten years of his life for a pound’.
After a period of homelessness he is now works as a coalman in Moray, Scotland.
Here’s the thing. The Usual Suspects are going to whine and bitch about this guy’s behavior — you know, “People like this shouldn’t be playing the lottery!” and all that shit — but I love it. Let’s be honest: this guy was a total yob, working-class scum (as Mr. Free Market might put it); but why shouldn’t such people have a chance to be happy, too?
He wasn’t completely irresponsible about it, either: he did give almost half to his family, up front. I bet they’re glad he won.
As for “blowing the rest on cocaine, vodka, and brothels” and bedding 4,000 women… at least he didn’t waste it. (Just do the math: 4,000 women during his period of wealth is more than one woman per day, for ten years. Dude.)
And now he’s back to working hard for a living. Good for him. It’s not how I would have done it, but then I’m not interested in telling people how to live their lives, or how to spend their money, most especially windfalls. I’m not a Democrat, in other words.
Over at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey introduces us to their movie-rating scale:
I have to say that the very last time I paid a full-price movie ticket was for the final Harry Potter episode — and in fact, I went to the movie house for all the Potter movies. If I recall correctly, the last non-Potter movie I saw in a cinema was Saving Private Ryan, and even that was some time after its initial release.
Every single other movie over the past twenty-odd years has fallen into the #2 category. As far as I’m concerned, there is not a movie in recent history worth the price of a movie ticket, or that is so good that I can’t wait to see it.
That doesn’t mean I think all movies have sucked in recent times — I’ve enjoyed lots of them, and Midnight In Paris, The Fabulous Baker Boys, A Good Year, The Incredibles and Gosford Park (to name but some) I’ve not only watched but watched over and over again.
And I’m not even going to get into the horrible morass that is watching a movie in a cinema today: people talking (loudly) all through the movie, people talking (loudly) on their phones all the way through the movie, people walking in and out of the cinema all through the movie, deafening movie soundtracks with bass turned up so high it can make one feel nauseated, trash and litter everywhere… do I need to go any further?
The only reason I’d go to the movies would be to watch Donald Trump winning his second term on Election Night in November 2020 — and that won’t be screened in cinemas anyway, so I can watch it for free on TV and (even better) see the mainstream TV personalities’ reaction:
(picture credit: some sick bastard on the Internet)
