Funeral Pyre

 This week I went for Sunday lunch in a horror film. My mum is confused and forgetful, so she'll do strange things and then forgot that she's done them. Rectifying these situations generally involves nothing more than carefully searching for or replacing lost objects or repairing the things that she's broken. On Sunday it was much weirder and nastier.

The back of her car contained thousands of flies and a soggy slithering heaving mass of maggots. The smell was indescribable and I was only just able to keep control of my stomach and lungs. I shovelled the whole sorry mess into a bonfire, boot carpet included, and burned it. Instead of eating lunch I went home, stripped naked in front of the washing machine and put everything I had been wearing through a hot wash. I had a shower and washed my hands in aftershave. I still don't think I'm free of the smell of it, and my appetite has been severely damaged.

It turns out that my mum had picked up a squashed hedgehog from the road (as though it were litter) and had left it in the back of the car during a heat wave.

Richard "ewww" B

Chairman of the Bored

 My life is boring enough at the best of times, but in the pandemic, pretty much nothing happens to me. This last couple of weeks for instance I have mainly been sitting in front of Netflix. I have binged through all 22+ hours of "Avatar the Last Airbender" and it is quite brilliant!

It should be terrible: It was made for children. It was made by Nickelodeon (Americans) but in the style of Japanese anime, and there's a lot of it.

The only criticisms that I can level at it are that some of it is a bit slow, and that some of the dialog and storytelling is a little bit obvious. However that only bothered me when I was so involved in it that I forgot it was written for twelve year olds. The magical world that it conjurs up is as big, as detailed and as rich as The Lord of the Rings. The story is set at the end of a hundred years war, but there are thousands of years of history just below the surface.

Even though it's for children it deals with very adult topics in a mature way. It deals with war, genocide, loss, corruption, honour, divided loyalties, personal growth and redemption. There's never a drop of blood shown or a swear word spoken, but the impact and gravity of the situations is gripping. In amongst all this there is simple clean humour. "She's got a giant mole" "What are you talking about? Her skin is flawless" "No she rides a giant mole monster".

In the same way that The Lord of the Rings or The Sandman is long enough that radical character development can seem natural and moving, two of the main characters are massively transformed throughout the story in the most compelling ways. What starts out as a one dimensional textbook villain becomes the most entertaining and admirable character in the whole thing.

Richard "find a child and go and watch it" B