Night Will Fall
Posted: Mon 26 January, 2015 Filed under: Advertising, Domestic, Films, Television, Thoughts, Time Leave a comment »Over the weekend, as part of Holocaust Memorial Day, Channel4 showed a documentary called “Holocaust – Night Will Fall” about the films made by the allied forces as they discovered Nazi Germany’s various concentration and death-camps at the end of World War 2, and recorded what they saw and discovered.
While absolutely vile – despite descriptions, you never really see the true results of those camps – it was also essential viewing, and a fascinating story as well. No modern film can truly show the effects of emaciation on bodies – no actor, regardless of dedication, would put themselves to that level – so you might see people being “very thin”, but the recordings on Night Will Fall put all of that into perspective. It’s not something you can look away from, but nor can you believe either the way the bodies are/were, or the sheer number of deaths. The piles of spectacles, the boxes of dentures, the sacks of human hair – they all show how many died, but you still can’t actually understand the sheer scale of the deaths. I truly don’t think anyone can envision millions of bodies.
The other impressive thing about the programme was that Channel4 showed it without adverts. A ninety-minute film, straight through. I thought that said a lot about Channel4 (although the more cynical would say “who would actually buy advertising space in the middle of a holocaust documentary anyway?”) but it’s still a commitment on the part of C4, and I fully believe that should be acknowledged and respected, as they’re primarily a commercial channel.
The film/documentary itself, I just think everyone should see it, and that it should be shown in schools as part of a default history curriculum. That sort of thing just should never happen again. Ever.
MOT – Loan Car
Posted: Wed 21 January, 2015 Filed under: Driving Leave a comment »While the Saab was getting its MOT yesterday, I got a courtesy car/loan car from the garage. Weirdly, for a Saab garage, it was a Renault. In this case, a Renault Clio Pzaz (don’t blame me for the fucking stupid name) which I can only describe as a hateful piece of shit.
I’m sure it’s fine for urban driving and commutes where you’re not travelling on fast roads or motorways – but on those roads, it’s a scary, underpowered piece of crap. I know, I’m spoiled by being used to driving cars with a 2L turbo engine – but I do drive primarily on motorways and fast roads. If I were doing that while driving something like the Pzaz, I’d be one scared driver – even getting up to 70mph was a struggle for it, and meant the motor was buzzing around the 4,500rpm mark, which is more than double the rpm the Saab uses for the same speeds and more.
Interestingly, I felt the same about the last Renault I drove – way back in Feb 2013. Obviously both were base-models, and thus the lowest of the low, but still, they’ve not been at all fun. I’m sort of surprised, because a couple of the car magazines I read recommend the higher-spec and better-performance Renaults. I haven’t played with any of those, so can’t comment – but I’m definitely unimpressed with the lower-spec base-models.
Thankfully, I only had it for a few hours. With luck, I won’t have to drive one again.
MOT – Passed
Posted: Tue 20 January, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Finances, Getting Organised, Travel Leave a comment »The car passed it MOT with no problem at all. Needless to say, I am very happy with this news.
I had been getting a bit stressed about it, as I hadn’t heard anything from the garage by 4pm. In fairness, they’re normally pretty good about letting me know if something’s going to be expensive, so I knew it was likely to be OK – but all the same, it was a bit worrying.
Anyway, I called them just after 4, to find out what was happening. And all was well – it was just that the garage had forgotten to call me. Bit annoying, but far better than “Oh yeah, we had to do a load of work, here’s the bill”
As it turned out, it passed with flying colours. One advisory (an out-of-balance parking brake, of all things) and that’s it. I’m quite surprised by this – it’s a Y-reg with 125,000 on the clock, after all – but pleased. And considerably better off than I was expecting…
MOT
Posted: Tue 20 January, 2015 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Finances Leave a comment »Among other things today, the car’s getting its MOT done.
I’m hoping that it won’t need much. I’ve already sorted most of the known issues already, including new tyres, new wiper-blades, and a replaced headlamp bulb a couple of weeks back. Of course, the inverse of that is that anything that does need doing is likely to be expensive.
Still, we’ll see. But for now, fingers crossed.