Dead Good Thoughts

In the recent times, we have watched some documentaries or series which are based on pensioners, most of them popular. Hard to Please OAP’s, The Real Marigold on Tour are some of them. Don’t ask me why. It is one of those things that you unconsciously start doing without realizing that you are turning into a pensioner or simply getting old.

Now, without digressing anymore let me tell you about this series that we watched. Miriam’s Dead Good Adventures. I am not sure how many of you will be able to watch this series, but I am glad I got the opportunity to watch it. Death is not a favourite topic of conversation. Even though it is an essential one, it is very difficult to bring it up conversationally and be able to talk about it freely. We feel like we are jinxing ourselves. That is why I am glad to see this 2 episode series.

In this Miriam tries to confront her fear of death and attempts a few things that are being done in different places to help her with that. She also talks to a few people who have had a brush with death or who are close to the edge. There are lot of things that are covered in these episodes, but I was glad that my doubts were also discussed.

I have never been afraid of death. I am afraid of not being able to function to my full capability but never about death. I have had two schools of thought and I keep changing from one to other at various times. Do I like to have some time before my death or do I want to have a quick and speedy death?

I am a planner. I like planning stuff and getting it done and ticking the items on the list and feeling happy about it. I am not manic about it, but I like it. I like to see that I have sorted my affairs without causing much trouble for others. So, for very long I have been in favor of having some time before my death so that I can sort out my affairs, make sure my folks know my laptop and account passwords, they know what I have written on my will and how it has to be executed, where do I want my ash spread (I want to be cremated after donating as much of my well-functioning organs) etc. etc.

Now for that I would have to either know my time of death (through astrology probably or some other magical means), or be given a time range because of some incurable disease. Now that throws up a question. It is not very easy to predict someone’s death time (even though I have heard that astrology can help you with that), and the other option means that I would be suffering an incurable disease. The fact that the disease is incurable or it is in a stage where it is incurable means that it is going to be a lot more painful that my monthly periods and that is something I hate. I hate my menstrual cramps. Anything else I can bear. Would I want to suffer that pain?

When I think in those lines, I move towards the other option. Wouldn’t it be great to just drop dead and not feel anything? Let the others who are left behind deal with what is left of me, because I wouldn’t know or care after I am dead, would I? Now just thinking about this makes me feel not want to choose this option. I get very tetchy when I don’t set out what I want after death, but again would I even know if my wishes were fulfilled once I am dead? Would my soul hover around those to whom I have given the list of things to do and haunt them until they do it? Since I don’t know about that, there is no point in me actually taking time to sort things out isn’t.

Now the whole post went in to a rant mode didn’t it? You see what I mean when I say I am not very sure of how I want it to be? Of course, at the end, I might not have a choice at all, as is mostly the case. Would I give up and ask them to pull the plug? I might. Depends on what the situation is. But having let my thought process out and wondering what my next option on that would be, I know that deep down I would love to have a little bit of time at least to say goodbye to the people I love, one last time. Would I have enough of good karma to have that time? Only time will tell.

Book updates

Our school started last week and the chaos has begun 🙂 Apart from computer science, I teach a little bit of maths this year but only for a small group. Have to see how that goes. I broke two brollies (umbrellas) yesterday. How did that happen? I have no clue. Mine was a souvenir from Singapore, so I removed the cloth and have saved it. I was trying to fold Mr M’s and ended up breaking that one too. I shouldn’t have tried that before I have had my coffee, you see. I should have followed the rules of procaffeination.

I realized that I haven’t told you about some of the books I read over the break (am yet to read one non-fiction, which was my goal for this year). So here they are.

a) Animal Farm – George Orwell – Mr M bought this book some time ago and kept it on my to-read list once he finished it. It took me more than 3-4 months to pick it up. I finished reading it in 2 days during my trip to Carmarthen. It is surprising how that story can be applied to any timeframe of humankind. Mind blowing isn’t it? Is there any point to even talk about it when everyone knows how great that story is? 5/5

b) The Woman on the Orient Express – Lindsay Jayne Ashford – A very interesting premise. A fictional story (with some true events woven in) about the woman who wrote the famous “The Murder on the Orient Express”, Agatha Christie. How her life adventures led her to write those amazing stories with Mr Poirot. A very interesting take and done well. The author also gives us the list of true events which she picked up from Agatha Christies biography. I enjoyed it a lot. 4/5

c) The Good Widow – Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke – A Kindle Unlimited book which starts all nice and sad about two people who are grieving for their spouses who were found dead in Maui whilst having an affair there. Slowly and steadily they retrace their steps to try to find out what made them cheat and why. I was totally into it until the very end. That final surprise came out of nowhere and kept me awake during the school night last week to complete the book. 4/5

d) Strike (TV Series) – I had read all the Strike series books but have forgotten the stories over time. We weren’t sure of how this was going to be and given that it is only a three series adaptation. Of course, the whole story is condensed and even though Tom Burke didn’t match the Strike of my imagination, he was OK. It was short and was done OK. Felt a bit rushed though. The personal touch to the involved characters was missing for some reason. Would give a 3/5 for sure.

 

 

Look who’s calling!

We were in a book shop (Foyle’s to be precise) when I saw this book saying ‘Now a major BBC drama’ in its cover and I was like ‘What the what???’ I googled it and lo behold, there is a BBC series coming up for the Cormoran Strike series. If you notice the comments in that trailer, one of them reads “That feeling when character’s appearance doesn’t correlate with an appearance that you have in your mind after reading the book.” that is exactly what I felt when I saw it. I thought Strike was a bit older. It has been a while since I read those books, so I have forgotten about the storylines but I remember what the character was like and it definitely doesn’t match this actor from what I can see from the trailer. Hopefully, it will be OK when we actually see it. I hope so. Looking forward to this. Mr George Gently is making an appearance in this series by the looks of this trailer. When are they going to show the 2nd episode of the latest series btw?

Updates on TV Shows

(Inspector)Lewis: Completed 4 seasons or so. Was surprised to see Hathaway a bit grown up with a funky style to him. (I am a fan of Hathaway actually!) I can’t imagine Lewis without him, just like Sherlock and Watson.

The Wrong Mans: We just finished the first season of this. It is hilarious. I didn’t know James Corden produced and acted in this. Those two protagonists are very good.

Taboo: I have started to watch this on BBC Weekly now only because of Tom Hardy. It is going OK so far. Let’s see if it manages to hold my attention for the whole season. Mr. High Sparrow from Game Of Thrones is up to no good in this one heh! He usually isn’t in any series/movie.

Shooter: I loved the Mark Wahlberg movie and I really like Ryan Phillipe. Those two reasons are enough to make me watch this series weekly on NetFlix, even though I still think it should have been just left with a movie version.

Sherlock: Of course I have started watching them. But only two episodes completed. We wanted it to be our Weekend Watch program instead of spending an hour and a half during the weekday evenings. Mr. M’s first foray into modern Sherlock wasn’t up to a good start. Thankfully the second episode made up for a tepid first one.

Death in Paradise:  Another one of our Weekend Watch program. I have absolutely loved all the previous seasons and was so glad when they came up with the new season. Again, the first episode wasn’t too captivating with its story, but the second one was good. Welcome back Dwayne 😉

Selfridge:  Just as a break from Lewis we started on this one. We are only one episode old, but it looks very grand doesn’t? The jury is out on this one. Too early to judge.

 

 

 

Necking?

This article explains it. Interesting!!!