Twenty something year old doing twenty something year old things

 Back to work day. My work during lockdown has been, most consistently, childcare. Jobbing in the often misunderstood 'arts', the effect of Covid was for obvious reasons, pretty grim. Child minding, I am incredibly grateful for. It offers excellent job security and the craic is, as they say, mighty. Today we were playing a highly competitive game of Lollipop Brick.  Ah, you don't know this game I hear you say? Well, let me explain: it involves a basketball hoop, shed wall, rugby ball and 2-3 very loud and hyperactive kids. I am including myself in that category. One team is shooting the ball into the hoop, the other--myself and child A--shoot against the shed wall. In order to score a point, it is imperative that once the ball has hit off the shed, a member of that team touches it. This is harder than it seems especially when child B arrives like a bulldozer charging in between the hitter and the shed, intercepting that crucial 'touch back' at stunning speed and vol...

A parched desert landscape and a singular straight road heads onward to the red hills beyond. A path that seems to lead temptingly toward freedom and adventure. This backdrop has been chosen carefully by director Ridley Scott for his 1991 Road Movie Thelma and Louise . He understands well the allure that America’s Western landscape offers up to an audience’ eye. This film takes a U turn from traditional tales of this genre and features two heroines, not heroes, on their own journey of discovery and, as it turns out, sacrifice. It is the landscape of this film and all it seems to hold in its deep valleys, towering stone monuments and swathes of endless desert that I want to focus on. How is it that this dramatic yet barren panorama successfully captured the hearts and minds of generations of Hollywood fans? The historical concept of ‘frontierism’ seems particularly apt for this film and its seductive landscape. It is defined by the Victorian historian Frederick Jackson Turner ...