Is entertainment a trillion dollar waste of time?

A light-hearted look at the vast amount of money spent on entertainment.

 

A lesson on queuing?

Universal Studios: What can we expect from a potential UK theme park?

Universal has theme parks in Florida, California, Japan, China, and Singapore, and is considering adding a European destination to its portfolio: Bedford, England.

Universal Destinations & Experiences - which, like Sky, is owned by US company Comcast - said it had acquired land in Bedford and was "at the early stages of exploring its feasibility for a potential park and resort at this site".

Oh dear, how sad, never mind

Hollywood strike: Hollywood will grind to a complete halt as actors and writers both walk out - it could last for months

This dual strike, the first for 63 years, means the entertainment industry will grind to a complete halt almost immediately.

Without writers and actors, very little can be achieved.

I've fired up my online concern detector but at the moment it reads zero. I've tapped it a few times and put in new batteries but nope - it still reads zero.

The Great Pretender

Jean Hatchet has a scathing Critic piece on Eddie Izzard.

The Great Pretender

When does acting stop and real life begin?

Former Sherlock Holmes, Robert Downey Jr, once said, “I know very little about acting. I’m just an incredibly gifted faker.”

It is perhaps a blueprint for acting that Eddie Izzard is tempted to adopt in excess. So much so that he blatantly attempts to blur the lines between acting and his real life, to the point where we might wonder when Eddie is acting and when he stops. Is it when he says he’s a woman and puts on a dress and stiletto boots, or when he plays the part of a man, as a man, for a huge salary?

Familiar territory, but well worth reading as a reminder that celebrities rarely seem to resist the temptation to treat the rest of us as fools. It is no great stretch to conclude that the entertainment industries generally treat us as fools.

I can see why Eddie doesn’t choose “girl mode” when he seeks a film role. Eddie is not a girl, because he’s 60 years old — and he’s not a woman because he’s a man. His commitment to “womanning” seems to be secondary to his desire for top billing. A woman by contrast can take off her lipstick and whistle. No one will come and offer her the role of Sherlock. Izzard knows this very well.

Woke gremlins sit jabbering on their shoulders

Harley J. Sims has an entertaining mercatornet piece on Amazon's invasion of Tolkien’s Middle-earth.

Tolkien’s Middle-earth has been colonized by a media giant and its woke gremlins

More money, less quality: why Amazon’s version of Middle earth is stale, boring, and lame.

There are a few reasons why fantasy exists and why it is so popular, but I imagine most people would agree it’s because of escapism. Escapism doesn’t require fantasy – we can escape into any imaginative circumstance from sports to sci-fi – but fantasy offers a kind of escapism further removed from reality than other genres.

Often set in alternative worlds, it can present belief systems, languages, cultures, and forces of nature far different from our own. Even physical laws – i.e. ‘the science’ – can be left behind, allowing for immersion in truly exotic waters.

The whole piece is well worth reading for the way it highlights the cultural damage done by entertainment behemoths.

Fans of The Lord of the Rings will recall Gandalf’s advice to Frodo about the One Ring – “Keep it secret. Keep it safe.” Well, the same can be advised of fantasy in general, and it was a lot easier to follow it before the genre became as ubiquitous at is now. Though the memory of those days is rapidly disappearing, there was a time when what are now-multi-billion-dollar properties belonged to the realm of geeky outsiders – intensely imaginative types and introverts – whose interests didn’t jive with what was popular. A lot of it had to do with the literary nature of fantasy – reading and obsessing over its details requires uncommon patience and intelligence as well as a tenacious sense of escapism. Now that the material has been popularized by film and other more immediately accessible media, what were once tranquil properties have become prime stomping grounds for the entertainment giants, as well as the woke gremlins that sit jabbering on their shoulders.

Put another way, reality has invaded the fantasy. Our 21st-century Zeitgeist, with all the hubris of its self-righteousness and revisionism, has possessed the body of Tolkien’s work, thrusting aside its old soul no less sickeningly than the demon did the little girl’s in the Exorcist. It intends to impersonate what we love, and to teach us why we suck for not enjoying what it pukes at us.

Didn't take long

Center Parcs U-turns over plans to turf out guests on day of Queen's funeral

The company has emailed all customers who will be affected by its decision, but many people on social media say it has only landed them with additional stress at a time of national mourning.

Tripadvisor comments should be interesting

Center Parcs tells guests ‘stay somewhere else’ on day of Queen’s funeral

Center Parcs has been inundated with complaints after announcing it will close UK sites on the day of the Queen’s funeral, with holidaymakers told to leave.

It said today that the five UK parks will close for 24 hours from 10am on Monday.

Guests part-way through holidays will be forced to spend the night elsewhere or go home early.

A Memory

 

The other day Mrs H and I watched a 1957 film called Rogue's Yarn -

An adulterous husband plans to kill his invalid wife. He thinks that he has the perfect alibi, but an alert detective unravels his story.

I was sure I recognised that alert detective and a quick check told me he was played by Elwyn Brook-Jones. Another quick check and it turned out that he was The Voice in the children's TV series Garry Halliday which ran from 1959 - 1962. That's why I recognised him.

My memory isn't particularly good, but I'll admit to being mildly gratified that I'd remembered seeing Elwyn Brook-Jones decades ago. Only mildly gratified because most of that 'remembering' came about because I could look him up so easily. Still - I remember Garry Halliday and The Voice. Just about.

Sound Market

For some reason, this morning Mrs H and I were discussing examples of pop music from our past which has been both horrible listen to but impossible to erase from the memory. We agreed that it would have been much better not to have wasted that memory capacity on such abysmal rubbish.

I suppose the discussion arose from Mrs H wondering who sang My Boy Lollipop and why something so ghastly still lurks at the back her mind decades later. I'm not even going to provide a link to it.

Who was the worst ever female singer though? That was the question we asked each other over slightly over-roasted coffee and a bun. Mrs H insists it was Cilla Black and I’m not prepared to argue although there are plenty of other potential candidates. It reminded me of an Alexa incident a few days ago.

Our TV prompted me to ask Alexa to play some relaxing music, so without thinking through the possibilities I did. Before I managed to switch the thing off, it played about ten seconds of someone called Billie Eilish who is famous apparently. I don’t know why, even worse than Cilla in my view. Few of us can avoid it altogether and maybe we shouldn't, but there is something horribly revealing about entertainment.