You Don't Live Like I Do

I saw the trailer for this film in the cinema and it looked interesting, but not enough to justify the risk of a trip during these pandemic times. So I was happy when it landed on a streaming service I have access to. It's a nice little exorcism themed movie, and obviously draws from a lot of the classic movies in that genre, but manages to put a few twists on it.

( Spoilers )

On Monday night I went to the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester to see Elliot Page talk about his memoir, "Pageboy". He was in conversation with the gay actor Russell Tovey. The first half was questions from Tovey, then during the interval they put up a QR code which allowed audience members to submit questions for vetting, and vote on others'. The second half was Tovey asking these questions.

There was some interesting trivia - Elliot has never seen a Bond film, and likes karaoke post-transition - but no earth-shattering revelations. What did come across clearly though is confirmation that he's a decent human, aware of his position of privilege as a white, rich trans guy. He was keen to pay tribute to the trans people, particularly women and people of colour, who came before him and who still struggle more than he does.

Afterwards, on the way to the pub with friends, one of them mentioned that our ticket stubs entitled us to a free copy of the memoir. So I headed back to the Bridgewater Hall, and just caught the stall as it was being taken down. I returned to the pub with three copies of the book, for me and the people I'd been with, feeling victorious.

Compared to the Q&A, the memoir is heavy going. It's not a difficult read - I devoured half of it very quickly before getting distracted. But the subject matter is deep. Tovey described it as an "exploration of the power of shame", and it certainly feels like that, describing Elliot struggling to fit into the world of a straight, cis Hollywood actress. However, it also explores liberation from that shame, and how his journey to self-realisation has helped him start to escape these expectations and feelings. I'm looking forward to finishing it.

This morning, cosmolinguist couldn't find the CO2 monitor which we use to maintain Covid safety during the ongoing pandemic. It was last in my possession on Friday.

I realised that it was within Bluetooth range of my phone, since the Aranet app could talk to it, which limited the search range. Then I set it to buzz every time it registered a critical level, and set the critical level threshold to 310ppm (normally outdoors is around 400). This caused the monitor to buzz every time it took a reading (60 seconds), which helped us track it down!

It was my fault for leaving it in my hoodie pocket rather than returning it to the fireplace where it normally resides, but I'm glad I could do something nerdy to help find it when I was still half asleep!

We're tuning in, watching it on live Freeview broadcast. Really enjoying the hosts. The first interval act between Alyosha and Rebecca Ferguson was breathtaking.

I took a few notes during each performance, so from the first semi-final in descending order of total score:

( Read more... )

tl;dr: It's both worth it and pretty easy to take basic precautions against COVID-19. The more you do, the safer you and those around you will be. Please feel free to share this post - either link to it, screencap it, copy and paste it, whatever - to help spread this message, rather than a potentially fatal, likely disabling illness.

On Friday, I went into Manchester City Centre with cosmolinguist to meet a friend for lunch. We already know the places that we can go with outside seating, and also cover in case the weather's unpleasant. For old time's sake, we met up at Nudo just off Piccadilly Gardens, and sat outside. It was sunny when we arrived, but a passing spring shower made us glad we were sitting under cover. After lunch, we went shopping in the Arndale. I wore my FFP2 mask; E wore his FFP3. We went into a few shops, and E got asked about his striking-looking mask as he often does. Then we went out into Exchange Square and sat outside Salvi's for coffee and cocktails, before popping masks back on for a mooch round Manchester Cathedral. I found a flyer there for the Manchester Jewish Museum, which has just completed an extension and refurbishment.

Our friend parted ways; E and I walked up Cheetham Hill (which is both shorter and steeper than I recall) to the museum. We went in masks on but it was pretty quiet and felt well ventilated; I used our portable CO2 monitor to confirm that the air was reasonably fresh, and we enjoyed the museum and synagogue without masks on. So much so that we lost track of time and got kicked out at 5pm as they were closing! We headed back down Red Bank and spotted Base Bar, a baseball-themed bar with some batting cages in back. Again, it was pretty quiet and the CO2 monitor confirmed we were OK to drink inside; as it got busier we moved out front. After a couple of drinks we were pretty peckish, so headed back towards the city centre and found Cali's Cafe which was good value and unpretentious. Again, it was pretty quiet and well ventilated and the CO2 monitor said we were fine to sit down and enjoy our burgers.

After that we headed practically next door to Bar Fringe, an old haunt from my student days. We sat outside in the beer garden and chatted to some people who were going to a comedy show nearby. It started raining so we finished our drinks and started to make our way back towards our bus home, stopping briefly at The Molly House which has a covered smoking area on the first floor where we could sit unmasked. Again we got talking to somebody there, about the value of the good deeds of evil people, which was a delightfully philosophical way to finish off a night out. Masks on again for the bus home to mother_bones.

I'm posting this not just because it was a lovely day, which it was, but because it was a lovely day that wasn't stopped by the precautions we continue to take, during this ongoing pandemic, to manage the risk to our own health and our immunocompromised friends and family. In a way I'm posting it to demonstrate that it is possible to have a life and still care about Covid. Certainly, having a portable CO2 monitor helps, and that's not something everyone can afford; it would help if the venues themselves were monitoring, publicising and managing their ventilation levels, as they're required to in some other countries. I'm still hoping some venues / promoters can be convinced to do this.

But the way the pandemic has shaken out (in the UK at least) means that people don't know they still need to take precautions, and they don't really know what's possible and what's useful. Doing the research is a big investment of time and energy, and if you don't have a strong reason to do so, then it can be too much work. Not many people know the current WHO guidance for COVID-19 recommends wearing masks indoors:

Masks are recommended following a recent exposure to COVID-19, when someone has or suspects they have COVID-19, when someone is at high-risk of severe COVID-19, and for anyone in a crowded, enclosed, or poorly ventilated space.

I'm hoping that stories like this can be positive examples for people.

(I seem to be failing at playing catchup or talking about anything nontrivial on here, so here's what I did this afternoon)

cosmolinguist and I went to the cinema for the first time since the ongoing pandemic started. It was a quiet screening (Tuesday 5:10pm) for a film that's been out a while, and we wore our FFP2 masks throughout. One of the attendants made a point of telling us how the air cycling rate has been increased in the auditoriums, to above the standard required in hospitals. For some reason this wasn't mentioned on Cineworld's "covid precautions" webpage, which I might try to get them to fix as it may encourage more business for them.

The film, "Everything Everywhere All At Once", is excellent. It has real heart tied in with fantastic action and very silly comedy. Michelle Yeoh is amazing, Jamie Lee Curtis is great and Stephanie Hsu is a real break-away star. To say much more would risk spoilers; it's not a film where that would ruin the entire thing, but I'd much rather people went into it relatively unprepared because it's the best way to process the sheer batshit wholesome awesomeness of it.