Skyfall = Skyfail

When you marry a man with wildly different tastes in literature and movies, you need to be prepared to compromise. So let me just say that I have seen my fair share of “movies in the James Bond genre” over the last 20 years or so.

With a reasonable amount of internal mental instruction on my part (do not sit here thinking of all the other far more worthy things I could be doing at this time, it is alright to sometimes just be entertained, James Bond is not a misogynistic pig, that scene where he jumps onto the back of a moving train/into moving aircraft/off moving motorbike and into back of moving truck is completely realistic), I have even been able to enjoy them.

So with kids away for the week and Life of Pi tucked into our belts as the first movie we saw this week, we headed off last night to an early evening screening of Skyfall.

I was looking forward to this as an event, early movie followed by dinner – not something we do often. And I was even (I promise) looking forward to the movie. I don’t particularly like Daniel Craig as James Bond; I think he does the whole thing far too seriously – as well as being attractively dangerous, James Bond needs to have a twinkle in his eye and a sense of humour, both things that DC lacks – but I did have the spectacular opening crane scene of Casino Royale firmly planted in my mind and I was prepared to, at least, be entertained.

Let me just say the movie didn’t start well. Yes there was the “fighting on the back of a train” opening scene – belief suspended, popcorn in hand, movie being enjoyed – but then Bond gets shot, falls into a river, and "dies" and really it was all downhill from there. So as not to provide too many
spoilers I'll keep my comments brief and to the point

• Terrible dialogue: Bond: “I didn’t recognise you without a gun strapped to your hip.” Beautiful female protagonist: “I feel naked without my baretta” (or something equally silly along those lines - and this was uttered during the movie's one and only seduction scene.)

• A ridiculous villain who would have better belonged in a batman movie.

• A badly-paced plot that meandered around and never found its feet (mmmmm let me see now, will I be a James Bond movie, or will I be a psychological explorational of what happens to a man with delusions of grandeur who at one stage in his life had a strong, controlling female boss).

• A silly plot with too many inconsistencies to even begin to list.

• A boring plot - honestly by about half way through I could barely sit still and listen to the rest of it. I have never walked out of a movie, but if M hadn't been there, believe me I would have strongly considered leaving this one.

And so it goes it on. In my attempts to validate my views on this ridiculous movie, I found these reviews which say it far better than I ever could.


Huffington Post


Ed Whitfield


Read the reviews. Don't bother with the movie.

Nepal

Just over 12 months ago my sister, Imelda, began a Women's and Children's Home in Nepal.  The genesis for the home goes back three years or so when she first visited Nepal.  I happened to be up in NQ at that time and dropped her at the airport.  She was very nervous, travelling by herself to a country she'd never been to, but had long wanted to visit.  At one point she thought she'd lost her boarding pass, thankfully found it, but was still on the verge of tears as she boarded the plane.  Nepal had not long "finished" its civil war and there were still often strikes and violence.  I knew all this and, being my "little" sister, it took a lot of effort for me not to rip Imelda out of the boarding line and bundle her back home with me. But I also knew that going to Nepal was life long dream and that this trip was too important for her to back out of.

On Imelda's first day in Nepal she went to visit the beautiful Durbar Square in Patan.  Not realising that she needed to purchase a ticket first, she began to wander around and was soon pulled up by one of the tourist guides - a Buddhist Nepalese called Balram Lama.  They struck up a conversation and Balram offered to show Imelda around, becoming her guide for her time in Kathmandu.

Not only was Balram a tour guide at that time, but he was heavily involved in charity work - caring for families affected by AIDS and having founded and run a drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic.  I still don't know the full details of Balram's early years, but I do know that one of the reasons he is so good at what he does is because he has first hand experience of it.  One of the critical people in his life, who effectively acted as Balram's guide, got him on the road to rehabilitation and is still one of his closest friends is a man who I know only by his surname "Lama" (which is what everyone calls him), who runs a Thanka shop in Kathmandu (I'll write more about that in another post).

During Imelda's first visit to Nepal, she and Balram developed a friendship, and found they shared a similar vision for helping the children of Nepal.  It took some planning, work and a whole lot of courage (Imelda at first provided sole funding for the establishment and running of the Home), but within a couple of years, Balram and Imelda had established a joint Nepalese/Australian charity and started the Home - WASH Nepal - Women and Street Children's Home.

Imelda continues to live in Australia, working, fund-raising and visiting Nepal as often as she can, while Balram runs the Home on the ground in Nepal.  They Skype every night and make all decisions about the Home together.  The Home currently cares for 9 children, but has also supported a number of other children during times when their parents were unable to care for them.

With my family, Imelda, my other sister and her friend I visited Nepal in 2012.  It is physically beautiful country with generous, resourceful people, however, it is impossible, from a western perspective, not to see poverty and need everywhere.  The reality, of course, is much more subtle than that.  Many people don't have a lot, but most manage to get by, particularly helped by the fact that the Nepalese are a generous people who will help each other as much as they can.  I was still interested, though, in learning from Balram how he "decided" which children would be cared for by the Home - surely, I asked,  you could have hundreds of children here, how do you decide who gets the opportunity offered by this Home.  

The answer goes something like this.  If a child has any parental figure - mother, father, uncle, aunt, employee - who can and does care for them that is the ideal no matter how difficult that situation might be.  It is when the child's last support network has dropped from beneath them and before they end up on the streets and an "accident" (Balram's euphemism for drugs or alcohol) happens that a Home like WASH Nepal comes into its own.  But the time between the child losing all support networks and being taken into somewhere like WASH Nepal is critical.  If the child becomes too independent or gets into drugs or alcohol then it is often too late.  Age is a factor as well.  In terms of helping street children, the younger the better (street children can be as young as three), because they are most likely to be willing to adapt to the routine of school, homework, chores.  Older children are often too independent to be willing to do that and (as strange as it seemed to me) will sometimes prefer life on the street.  (Another blog post on that at another time).

If you are interested in following Imelda's sporadic Facebook updates you can like WASH NEPAL here

The children, Didi, Imelda, Balram, Luka

Balram and I in the back of a Tuk Tuk

Imelda being welcomed by Balram at the airport

Facing the days

I found out this week that my Nonna (Grandmother), aged 92, has Leukaemia.  It's still very early in the diagnosis and we're still not sure what it means in terms of how quickly we can expect the Leukaemia to do its damage and how her care will be managed.  Obviously the type of treatment given to a ninety year old will be very different to that given to a thirty year old, so there will, no doubt, be difficult, perhaps heartbreaking, decisions to be made.  At least, at this stage anyway, it appears that the family and the doctor are going down a path that involves my Nonna largely making those decisions herself, rather than having them made for her.  For me that is one small blessing.

Nonna is still so healthy in every other way - strong heart, takes limited medication, still lives independently - that I had almost viewed her as indestructible so this has been a shock, although for the last few years, every time I said goodbye to her, I did wonder if it would be for the last time. It has been over 18 months since I've seen Nonna. One of the things she said to me the last time I saw her - and it was almost a whisper as if she didn't want anyone else to hear - was that every day she had to make the decision as to whether or not she was going to get out of bed that day and that sometimes it was a struggle.

I've thought about that comment a lot since then - the seemingly simple decision that most of us make each day to get out of bed and face the day.  Because of course it really isn't a simple decision at all.  If I didn't actually HAVE to get out of bed - work, kids, etc - would I?  If, every day, getting up was an act of will, would I keep doing it - especially if I knew I was towards the end of my life - no new opportunities around the corner, no real surprises, if I had no obligations and if I pretty much knew what every day was going to be like, would I even bother?   Without going into the details of my conclusion, I think that making even that one seemingly small decision - to get out of bed each day - is a pretty heroic effort.

By no accounts has my Nonna has a difficult life.  In many ways she has been lucky.  She married the love of her life, has three healthy children, 12 grand children, a score or so of great grandchildren.  She and Nonno retired early with enough money that Nonna has always been comfortable.  She is just as complex - both positively and negatively - as the rest of us.  She does have one great advantage over most of us, however, and that is that the majority of her family have stayed close by.  She has children, grandchildren and great children calling over most days, and despite the fact that she is decades older than some of them, she still has a good circle of friends.

One of my good friends is a nurse who worked in palliative care for many years and I remember her once telling me - you can tell how someone has lived by how they die.  My friend has seen families come together over a death bed and families split apart; she has seen people die alone and seemingly unloved and people surrounded by friends and family.  If a life and a death can be measured by how those around us respond to us, then my Nonna need have no concern, and I hope that - as she has already done for so long - she continues to have the courage to get out of bed and face the rest of her days.