So, the important event of the last weekend was the meal I cooked for my parents for their 51st Wedding Anniversary.
Actually, the important thing was that I went round the house like a dose of carbolic cleaning the place up. I passed the mother test. And every son reading this will know what I am talking about.
There was one slight moment during the meal. We got round to talking about asylum seekers. It seems to be a hot topic everywhere at present. My parents are against them all. I am not surprised by this. I chided them slightly and mentioned the conversation I had had with the cab drive when I was last in London.
As my parents readily acknowledge, they are not educated. Hitler put paid to that. But they are not stupid. They recognised the sense of what I was saying about every generation needing its own group to demonise. They even understood the notion that asylum seekers are actually a net economic benefit to the country. Then my mother said "Well, the government needs a generation, as well." I said "What?" She said, "Well, we need people to do the dirty work. We haven't enough of our own. They did it in 1950. That's what they're doing now. It's what governments do.
Come the evening I went out to the local cinema which has a art screen. I watched Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes a film written and directed by François Ozon based on a play by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
It's all set in the early 70s and involves seduction of younger man by older and various sexual games and permutations as first the younger man's girlfriend arrives on the scene and then the older man's transsexual boy to girlfriend. It probably caused a great scandal when the play was first given. Now, it seems a little passé. I could have done without the operatic ending with suicide. It would have been more effective and chilling for the younger generation to take over the rôles left for them by the older couple.
Bernard Giraudeau was excellent as the roué Léopold; and Malik Zidi was exceptionally cute as Franz.
Sunday I cleaned the windows and gardened a little.
I'm looking forward to seeing Chris at the weekend and Ross the week after when I'm on holiday.
This evening I should have been attending a talk given by Colin for the Liverpool Opera Circle. However, I feel full of cold so we met up for a quick meal at the Everyman Bistro and then I've missed the talk to come home. I should be in bed now but I just need to do some more writing.