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"God's problem now": Man's hilarious obituary for his father goes viral

A man's hilarious obituary for his father has gone viral, after he claimed his late dad's antics were "God's problem now." Texas man Charles Boehm wrote the obituary for his father Robert, who died at the age of 74 on October 6th after he fell and hit his head. When Charles was given the task of writing the notice for his father, he wanted to make it funny in a way that would reflect his dad's character, rather than making it a sombre and serious obit. “Robert Adolph Boehm, in accordance with his lifelong dedication to his own personal brand of decorum, muttered his last unintelligible and likely unnecessary curse on October 6, 2024, shortly before tripping backward over ‘some stupid bleeping thing’ and hitting his head on the floor,” the obituary read. He joked that his Catholic father managed to get his mother pregnant three times in five years, allowing him to avoid getting drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. “Much later, with Robert possibly concerned about the brewing conflict in Grenada, Charles was born in 1983,” Charles wrote. “This lack of military service was probably for the best, as when taking up shooting as a hobby in his later years, he managed to blow not one, but two holes in the dash of his own car on two separate occasions, which unfortunately did not even startle, let alone surprise, his dear wife Dianne, who was much accustomed to such happenings in his presence and may have actually been safer in the jungles of Vietnam the entire time.” Charles wrote of his father's hilarious hobby, saying, “Robert also kept a wide selection of harmonicas on hand — not to play personally, but to prompt his beloved dogs to howl continuously at odd hours of the night to entertain his many neighbours, and occasionally to give to his many, many, many grandchildren and great-grandchildren to play loudly during long road trips with their parents.” Earlier this year, Robert’s wife and Charles’ mother, Dianne, passed away, with Charles writing that God had “finally” shown her mercy and given her some peace and quiet. “Without Dianne to gleefully entertain, Robert shifted his creative focus to the entertainment of you, the fine townspeople of Clarendon, Texas. Over the last eight months, if you have not met Robert or seen his road show yet, you probably would have soon,” the obituary read. “We have all done our best to enjoy/weather Robert’s antics up to this point, but he is God’s problem now.” The obit was shared to social media and quickly went viral, with many praising Charles for his unique and heartfelt writing. “You ever read an obituary and think, ‘Dang, I’m sorry I never had the chance to meet them. They seemed pretty cool’. That’s me with this guy,” one person wrote. Image credits: dignitymemorial.com

Family & Pets

“Please go away”: Grieving mother slams “god-bothering” vandal

A heart-broken mother has slammed a “god-botherer” who superglued a cross to her son’s memorial. Sydney parents Edwina and Anthony Symonds lost their son Sebastian, lovingly known as Seb, when he was just 10-months-old in 2018. After Seb’s death, the grieving parents organised for a memorial plaque to be fixed to a sitting rock located at a popular walk in the city's northern beaches – a place they frequented with Seb before his passing. Edwina told <a href="https://honey.nine.com.au/latest/sydney-baby-memorial-plaque-cross-super-glue-parents-message/348ed1ef-3155-4d56-977e-df84db43715b" target="_blank" rel="noopener">9Honey </a>that she is used to finding well-wishing trinkets people have left behind on Seb’s memorial. "Previously we've had little bibles left there, or small rocks that have been painted by children, or feathers," Edwina said, adding that the family usually takes the items with them as they go along. However, Edwina said one passerby has taken it too far, by supergluing a religious cross to the plaque. "It's obnoxious," Edwina says. She was informed of the unwanted addition to her son's plaque by a friend, and shared a post on a local Facebook page to explain her distress. "To be fair, I'm Catholic and I used to go to church every week when I was younger. I don't have a problem with religion," she said. "I think I captured it well with what I wrote. But don't super glue your religion to me or my son." Her Facebook post read, "To the God-botherer that vandalised our son's plaque by supergluing a cross to it!!! I imagine somewhere in whatever religion you choose to follow, there is some sort of rule that says, 'Don't be a low-life by wrecking other people's property.' If not, there should be.” "Religion is a nice ideal. You are entitled to your beliefs and no-one should take issue with that. I certainly don't.” "I am sure you had some lovely thoughts when you were sitting with Seb like, 'God took this baby to a 'better' place, or that he 'had a plan' for this child, or even the classic 'everything happens for a reason.'” "Cool story, but please go away. Seb doesn't need you to 'save' him. He died already. He can't be saved.” Anthony also commented on the post, not holding back with his frustration over the vandal’s actions. "To the god botherer, Seb is looking down having a laugh at your kooky effort and giving you his swear finger. At 10 months old, his heart was as pure as it gets, though he has subsequently learnt the words f--k you.” "A narrow minded fool, keep away from Seb's little playground. Keep your ideas out of other people's lives unless invited in, the end.” While many of the comments expressed distress at news of her son's death at such a young age, Edwina was quick to explain they are managing to live with their grief, and that Seb's death isn't the issue at hand. "I'm sure they had good intentions, but their execution is s***house," Edwina told 9Honey. "I haven't been down there yet, you have to walk one kilometre along the walkway to see it. I'll have to go to Bunnings to get some bond remover or something. But I have two young kids, so it's just another thing on my to-do list." Image credits: Facebook

Family & Pets

Girl, Interrupted interrogates how women are ‘mad’ when they refuse to conform – 30 years on, this memoir is still important

Thirty years ago, American writer Susanna Kaysen published her memoir <a href="https://www.hachette.com.au/susanna-kaysen/girl-interrupted">Girl, Interrupted</a>. It tells the story of her two years inside McLean Hospital in Boston as a psychiatric patient. She was admitted, aged 18, in 1967. A few months earlier, she had taken 50 aspirin in a state of despair. Late in the book, she reveals she had a sexual relationship with her male English teacher at school. Kaysen was interviewed briefly by a doctor before she was admitted as a “voluntary” patient: a legal category used to indicate a person’s status in the institution. Despite what the term implies, “voluntary” doesn’t mean a patient can leave without the consent of their medical team, as Kaysen explains. People admitted as voluntary patients acknowledge their own need for treatment. During Kaysen’s stay, she was treated with an <a href="https://theconversation.com/story-of-antipsychotics-is-one-of-myth-and-misrepresentation-18306">antipsychotic</a> medication, chlorpromazine, and received psychotherapy. In her memoir, the stories of other young women confined with her at McLean convey sympathetic and recognisable experiences of the institutional world and its regime. Girl, Interrupted is one of the most famous memoirs of hospitalisation and mental illness. More <a href="https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/ircl.2019.0310?journalCode=ircl">recent interpretations</a> describe it as a narrative of “trauma”. <h2>‘Mad’ or refusing to conform?</h2> Kaysen did not anticipate the book’s reception at the time of its publication in 1993. It seemed to open readers up to tell their own stories, and they wrote to her from many places around the world to tell her about their hospitalisation. Looking back in a new edition published this year by Virago Books, she writes “it was surprising to me how many people had been in a mental hospital or had what used to be called a nervous breakdown”. When it appeared, her book was widely reviewed as “funny”, “wry”, “piercing” and “frightening”. Set out as a series of short vignettes, the book allowed readers the space to “insert themselves” into this story of human suffering. Investigating whether she had ever really been “crazy” – or just caught up in an oppressive approach to girls whose lives strayed from expectations – likely meant possible personal exposure, admission of frailty, and fear of judgement for Kaysen. Thirty years later, we have better understandings of trauma and of care for people with mental illness. So what can this book tell us now? Kaysen had waited almost three decades after these experiences before sharing her story in the early 1990s. This may be one reason it resonated with readers. The book was published at a time when most large institutions had closed as part of a worldwide trend towards deinstitutionalisation. Many people were starting to talk more openly about their own episodes of mental illness and recalling periods of hospitalisation that were sometimes grim and harrowing. By the 1990s, there was also much greater awareness of the uneven power relationships in psychiatric treatment. Women and girls, subject to gendered social expectations, have historically received different forms of medical and psychiatric treatment. Women have been described as “mad” for centuries when they refused to conform to gender norms. The book – an account of adolescent turmoil, with girlhood at the centre – can tell us about the lived experiences of teenage girls who face interior struggles over their mental health and wellbeing. Published in 1993 about the events of the late 60s, its insights are enduringly relevant. <h2>A controversial diagnosis</h2> In 1993, The New York Times ran an article titled “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/20/books/a-designated-crazy.html">A Designated Crazy</a>” that explained Kaysen had hired a lawyer to access her patient clinical records, 25 years after being at McLean. These appear in the book. Placed at intervals in the narrative, these notes show the objectifying medical practices of admission, collecting information and establishing a diagnosis. The information in these clinical pages is deeply personal. Sharing them is an act of resistance and defiance. “Needed McLean for [the past] 3 years ... Profoundly depressed – suicidal ... Promiscuous … might get herself pregnant ... Ran away from home ... Living in a boarding house.” Kaysen’s father, an academic at Princeton, wrote these notes in April 1967. In June 1967, the formal medical notes from her admitting doctor stated she had “a chaotic and unplanned life”, was sleeping badly, was immersed in “fantasy” and was isolated. Kaysen was admitted as “depressed”, “suicidal” and “schizophrenic”, with “borderline personality disorder”. While the psychiatric diagnoses used in the 1960s still exist, the borderline diagnosis is <a href="https://theconversation.com/borderline-personality-disorder-is-a-hurtful-label-for-real-suffering-time-we-changed-it-41760">now controversial</a>. Progressive psychologists and feminist psychologists are more likely to use the term “complex trauma”. Some of the other young women in the memoir had traumatic life experiences of sexual abuse and violence, which manifested as <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-many-people-have-eating-disorders-we-dont-really-know-and-thats-a-worry-121938">eating disorders</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-self-harm-and-why-do-people-do-it-11367">self harm</a>. Diagnostic labels have evolved over time. The first edition of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-dsm-and-how-are-mental-disorders-diagnosed-9568">Diagnostic and Statistical Manual</a> (DSM) was published in 1952. In 1967, the year of Kaysen’s committal, the DSM did not include “borderline personality disorder”, though the borderline concept had been <a href="https://www.press.jhu.edu/newsroom/dsm-history-psychiatrys-bible">theorised from the 1940s.</a> <h2>McLean’s famous patients</h2> We can also read the book as an exposé of the controlling world of psychiatric institutions for people in the 1960s. The vast majority of people with psychiatric conditions were confined in public institutions, in often overcrowded conditions. Abuses happened, and violence was common. One distinction for those hospitalised at McLean in Boston, a private institution, was that it housed people whose families could afford the steep fees. Kaysen’s father had to declare his salary when he signed the paperwork. Famous patients included the mathematician <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-legacy-of-john-nash-and-his-equilibrium-theory-42343">John Forbes Nash</a> (whose story was told in the film, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268978/">A Beautiful Mind</a>), and New England poets Robert Lowell and <a href="https://theconversation.com/60-years-since-sylvia-plaths-death-why-modern-poets-cant-help-but-write-after-sylvia-199477">Sylvia Plath</a> in the late 1950s. McLean’s own “biography” is the subject of another book. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/01/the-asylum-on-the-hill/303058/">Gracefully Insane</a> shows its reputation as housing sometimes idiosyncratic and wealthy people whose families wanted them to be hidden, fearful of the stigma of mental illness in the family. Plath’s <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Sylvia-Plath-Bell-Jar-9780571268863">The Bell Jar</a> fictionalises her hospitalisation at McLean in the 1950s, following a suicide attempt. "Doctor Gordon’s private hospital crowned a grassy rise at the end of a long, secluded drive that had been whitened with broken quahog shells. The yellow clapboard walls of the large house, with its encircling verandah, gleamed in the sun, but no people strolled on the green dome of the lawn." Like Kaysen, Plath’s character Esther Greenwood has been involved in sexual relationships with men that made her uneasy, affecting her confidence and sense of self. Skiing with Buddy Willard, she falls and breaks her leg: “you were doing fine”, someone says, “until that man stepped into your path”. Later, floundering at college, she too is admitted by a male doctor acting on the advice of her mother: she has not slept, she is exhausted, she is not herself. He advises she needs shock therapy. In her new biography of Plath, <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/red-comet-9781529113143">Red Comet</a>, Heather Clark describes McLean in the 1950s as reliant on shock therapy and activities, rather than psychoanalysis and careful therapeutic interventions. It was reputedly only a “notch above” a public institution, though it had the veneer of being for elite residents. Just a few years before Kaysen’s admission to McLean, Plath died by suicide in 1963, aged 30. The Bell Jar had been published one month earlier, under a pseudonym. By the late 1960s, teenage admissions were a focus for McLean’s doctors. Did adolesence present a new challenge for families and authorities, making young women vulnerable to institutionalisation? <h2>Psychiatry and romantic love</h2> Revisiting Girl, Interrupted, I am struck by its raw and honest recognition of the way women have sometimes experienced relationships with men as inherently oppressive. The structures of psychiatry and romantic love intersect throughout this book. Kaysen, like Plath, sees the family as a toxic institution. Male psychiatrists loom over both women, imposing in their authority to diagnose. “He looked triumphant”, wrote Kaysen of her doctor. “Doctor Gordon cradled his pencil like a slim, silver bullet”, wrote Plath. Women writing about their own madness has a long history. American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) penned the story <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/286957.The_Yellow_Wall_Paper">The Yellow Wallpaper</a> in The New England Magazine in 1892. It <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/feb/07/charlotte-perkins-gilman-yellow-wallpaper-strangeness-classic-short-story-exhibition">tells the tale</a> of a woman’s mental and physical exhaustion following childbirth. Historians such as Elizabeth Lunbeck <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691025841/the-psychiatric-persuasion">write about</a> the way a “psychiatric persuasion” came to dominate thinking about gender in the early 20th century. Psychiatrists began to see everyday life difficulties – such as the changes experienced during adolescence – as signalling illness (we might say, pathologising “normal” responses to stressful events). The rise of psychiatric expertise paralleled their professional reactions to women (and men) who struggled with life. In Australia, the history of “good and mad women” up to the 1970s by <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Good_and_Mad_Women.html?id=NIZ9QgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Jill Julius Matthews</a> showed that women who experienced hospitalisation as a result of mental breakdown were perceived as having “failed” to meet the gendered expectations of them. Femininity and its constraints left some women unable to function or live authentic lives. <h2>Institutions on film</h2> Girl, Interrupted was released <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0172493/">as a film</a> by Columbia Pictures in 1999, with a cast of rising and established young actors, including Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie and Brittany Murphy. It dramatised the interpersonal relationships inside the hospital described by Kaysen. The film script was not only the perfect vehicle for an ensemble cast of these women. It was also another opportunity to make mental illness visible on the screen. Another page-to-screen adaptation in 1975, Milos Forman’s film of Ken Kesey’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073486/">One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest</a>, brought to life the dramatic environment of institutional control and violence personified by the character of Nurse Ratched. Girl, Interrupted’s screenplay surfaced different women’s experiences of abuse, neglect, trauma and violence to explain their behaviours and responses to institutional constraints. Like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the film also emphasised the theme of resistance to institutional control. Patients hid pill medications under the tongue, broke into the hospital administration office to look at their case files, and found ways to circumvent the routines of institutional life. The film depicted the drama of group therapy, and the power dynamic between staff and patients. Not everyone who was institutionalised reacted the same way to being in hospital. Kaysen wrote "For many of us, the hospital was as much a refuge as it was a prison. Though we were cut off from the world and all the trouble we enjoyed stirring up out there, we were also cut off from the demands and expectations that had driven us crazy." A recent collaborative history of institutional care by Australian poet <a href="https://theconversation.com/secrecy-psychosis-and-difficult-change-these-lived-experiences-of-mental-illness-will-inspire-a-kaleidoscope-of-emotions-191011">Sandy Jeffs</a> and social worker Margaret Leggatt, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/am/podcast/out-of-the-madhouse-with-sandy-jeffs/id992762253?i=1000501765764">Out of the Madhouse</a>, challenges the idea of the institution as a place of alienation. Jeffs found community and solace at Larundel Hospital in Melbourne in the late 1970s and 1980s. However, the book also acknowledges this is not a universal response for institutionalised people. Like Kaysen, people with lived experiences of mental illness and hospitalisation have found it therapeutic to write about their personal challenges. For some, it provides an opportunity to embrace the “mad” identity, to find empathy for others. And to create a new self out of the chaos of mental breakdown. This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/girl-interrupted-interrogates-how-women-are-mad-when-they-refuse-to-conform-30-years-on-this-memoir-is-still-important-199211" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. Images: Getty

Books

UK national anthem undergoes change now Charles is King

After 70 years of singing ‘God save the Queen’, Brits will be faced with a change to their national anthem, prompted by the shock death of Queen Elizabeth II. With King Charles III to take the throne, the national anthem will change to God Save the King. Though nearly all of the lyrics will stay the same, there will be some key replacements: ‘queen’ with ‘king’, and ‘she’ and ‘her’ swapped for ‘he’ and ‘him’. The change will see the anthem return to its original title, as it was first publicly performed in 1745 after Prince Charles Edward Stuart defeated the army of King George II at Prestonpas, according to the royal family’s <a href="https://www.royal.uk/national-anthem" target="_blank" rel="noopener">website</a>. It became the national anthem at the beginning of the 19th century, with the lyrics changing when a King or Queen takes the throne. Queen Elizabeth II began her reign in 1952, when she was 25, resulting in the lyrics changing from ‘God save the King’ during her father King George VI’s reign to ‘God save the Queen’. Image: Getty Images

Music

Frankenstein: how Mary Shelley’s sci-fi classic offers lessons for us today about the dangers of playing God

<a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/frankenstein-9780241425121" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus</a>, is an 1818 novel by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Set in the late 18th century, it follows scientist Victor Frankenstein’s creation of life and the terrible events that are precipitated by his abandonment of his creation. It is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_fiction" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gothic novel</a> in that it combines supernatural elements with horror, death and an exploration of the darker aspects of the psyche. It also provides a complex critique of Christianity. But most significantly, as one of the first works of science-fiction, it explores the dangers of humans pursuing new technologies and becoming God-like. <h2>The celebrity story</h2> Shelley’s Frankenstein is at the heart of what might be the greatest celebrity story of all time. Shelley was born in 1797. Her mother, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Wollstonecraft" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mary Wollstonecraft</a>, author of the landmark A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), was, according to that book’s introduction, “the first major feminist”. Shelley’s father was <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/godwin/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">William Godwin</a>, political philosopher and founder of “philosophical anarchism” – he was anti-government in the moment that the great democracies of France and the United States were being born. When she was 16, Shelley eloped with radical poet <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Percy Shelley</a>, whose <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ozymandias</a> (1818) is still regularly quoted (“Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”). Their relationship seems to epitomise the Romantic era itself. It was crossed with outside love interests, illegitimate children, suicides, debt, wondering and wandering. And it ultimately came to an early end in 1822 when Percy Shelley drowned, his small boat lost in a storm off the Italian coast. The Shelleys also had a close association with the poet <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lord Byron</a>, and it is this association that brings us to Frankenstein. In 1816 the Shelleys visited Switzerland, staying on the shores of Lake Geneva, where they were Byron’s neighbours. As Mary Shelley tells it, they had all been reading ghost stories, including Coleridge’s <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43971/christabel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Christabel</a> (Coleridge had visited her father at the family house when Shelley was young), when Byron suggested that they each write a ghost story. Thus 18-year-old Shelley began to write Frankenstein. <h2>The myth of the monster</h2> The popular imagination has taken Frankenstein and run with it. The monster “Frankenstein”, originally “Frankenstein’s monster”, is as integral to Western culture as the characters and tropes from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. But while reasonable continuity remains between Carroll’s Alice and its subsequent reimaginings, much has been changed and lost in the translation from Shelley’s novel into the many versions that are rooted in the popular imagination. There have been many varied adaptations, from <a href="https://youtu.be/TBHIO60whNw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Edward Scissorhands</a> to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGzc0pIjHqw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Rocky Horror Picture Show</a> (see <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/feb/11/the-20-best-frankenstein-films-ranked" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a> for a top 20 list of Frankenstein films). But despite the variety, it’s hard not to think of the “monster” as a zombie-like implacable menace, as we see in the <a href="https://youtu.be/BN8K-4osNb0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">trailer to the 1931 movie</a>, or a lumbering fool, as seen in <a href="https://youtu.be/nBV8Cw73zhk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Herman Munster incarnation</a>. Further, when we add the prefix “franken” it’s usually with disdain; consider “frankenfoods”, which refers to genetically modified foods, or “frankenhouses”, which describes contemporary architectural monstrosities or bad renovations. However, in Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein’s creation is far from being two-dimensional or contemptible. To use the motto of the Tyrell corporation, which, in the 1982 movie Bladerunner, creates synthetic life, the creature strikes us as being “more human than human”. Indeed, despite their dissimilarities, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoAzpa1x7jU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the replicant Roy Batty in Bladerunner reproduces Frankenstein’s creature’s intense humanity</a>. <h2>Some key elements in the plot</h2> The story of Victor Frankenstein is nested within the story of scientist-explorer Robert Walton. For both men, the quest for knowledge is mingled with fanatical ambition. The novel begins towards the end of the story, with Walton, who is trying to sail to the North Pole, rescuing Frankenstein from <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0c/Caspar_David_Friedrich_-_Das_Eismeer_-_Hamburger_Kunsthalle_-_02.jpg/1280px-Caspar_David_Friedrich_-_Das_Eismeer_-_Hamburger_Kunsthalle_-_02.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sea ice</a>. Frankenstein is being led northwards by his creation towards a final confrontation. The central moment in the novel is when Frankenstein brings his creation to life, only to be immediately repulsed by it: <blockquote> I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. </blockquote> Victor Frankenstein, like others in the novel, is appalled by the appearance of his creation. He flees the creature and it vanishes. After a hiatus of two years, the creature begins to murder people close to Frankenstein. And when Frankenstein reneges on his promise to create a female partner for his creature, it murders his closest friend and then, on Frankenstein’s wedding night, his wife. <h2>More human than human</h2> The real interest of the novel lies not in the murders or the pursuit, but in the creature’s accounts of what drove him to murder. After the creature murders Frankenstein’s little brother, William, Frankenstein seeks solace in the Alps – in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanderer_above_the_Sea_of_Fog#/media/File:Caspar_David_Friedrich_-_Wanderer_above_the_sea_of_fog.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sublime nature</a>. There, the creature comes upon Frankenstein and eloquently and poignantly relates his story. We learn that the creature spent a year secretly living in an outhouse attached to a hut occupied by the recently impoverished De Lacey family. As he became self-aware, the creature reflected that, “To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour that can befall a sensitive being.” But when he eventually attempted to reveal himself to the family to gain their companionship, he was brutally driven from them. The creature was filled with rage. He says, “I could … have glutted myself with their shrieks and misery.” More human than human. After Victor Frankenstein dies aboard Walton’s ship, Walton has a final encounter with the creature, as it looms over Frankenstein’s body. To the corpse, the creature says: <blockquote> “Oh Frankenstein! Generous and self-devoted being! What does it avail that I now ask thee to pardon me? I, who irretrievably destroyed thee by destroying all thou lovedst.” </blockquote> The creature goes on to make several grand and tragic pronouncements to Walton. “My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy; and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change, without torture such as you cannot even imagine.” And shortly after, about the murder of Frankenstein’s wife, the creature says: “I knew that I was preparing for myself a deadly torture; but I was the slave, not the master, of an impulse, which I detested, yet could not disobey.” These remarks encourage us to ponder some of the weightiest questions we can ask about the human condition: <blockquote> What is it that drives humans to commit horrible acts? Are human hearts, like the creature’s, fashioned for ‘love and sympathy’, and when such things are withheld or taken from us, do we attempt to salve the wound by hurting others? And if so, what is the psychological mechanism that makes this occur? </blockquote> And what is the relationship between free will and horrible acts? We cannot help but think that the creature remains innocent – that he is the slave, not the master. But then what about the rest of us? The rule of law generally blames individuals for their crimes – and perhaps this is necessary for a society to function. Yet I suspect the rule of law misses something vital. Epictetus, the stoic philosopher, considered such questions millennia ago. He asked: <blockquote> What grounds do we have for being angry with anyone? We use labels like ‘thief’ and ‘robber’… but what do these words mean? They merely signify that people are confused about what is good and what is bad. </blockquote> <h2>Unintended consequences</h2> Victor Frankenstein creates life only to abandon it. An unsympathetic interpretation of Christianity might see something similar in God’s relationship with humanity. Yet the novel itself does not easily support this reading; like much great art, its strength lies in its ambivalence and complexity. At one point, the creature says to Frankenstein: “Remember, that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.” These and other remarks complicate any simplistic interpretation. In fact, the ambivalence of the novel’s religious critique supports its primary concern: the problem of technology allowing humans to become God-like. The subtitle of Frankenstein is “The Modern Prometheus”. In the Greek myth, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Prometheus</a> steals fire – a technology – from the gods and gives it to humanity, for which he is punished. In this myth and many other stories, technology and knowledge are double-edged. Adam and Eve eat the apple of knowledge in the Garden of Eden and are ejected from paradise. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, <a href="https://youtu.be/RWCvMwivrDk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">humanity is born when the first tool is used</a> – a tool that augments humanity’s ability to be violent. The novel’s subtitle is referring to Kant’s 1755 essay, “The Modern Prometheus”. In this, Kant observes that: <blockquote> There is such a thing as right taste in natural science, which knows how to distinguish the wild extravagances of unbridled curiosity from cautious judgements of reasonable credibility. From the Prometheus of recent times Mr. Franklin, who wanted to disarm the thunder, down to the man who wants to extinguish the fire in the workshop of Vulcanus, all these endeavors result in the humiliating reminder that Man never can be anything more than a man. </blockquote> Victor Frankenstein, who suffered from an unbridled curiosity, says something similar: <blockquote> A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind … If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections, and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. </blockquote> And also: “Learn from me … how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.” In sum: be careful what knowledge you pursue, and how you pursue it. Beware playing God. Alas, history reveals the quixotic nature of Shelley and Kant’s warnings. There always seems to be a scientist somewhere whose dubious ambitions are given free rein. And beyond this, there is always the problem of the unintended consequences of our discoveries. Since Shelley’s time, we have created numerous things that we fear or loathe such as the atomic bomb, cigarettes and other drugs, chemicals such as DDT, and so on. And as our powers in the realms of genetics and artificial intelligence grow, we may yet create something that loathes us. It all reminds me of sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson’s relatively recent (2009) remark <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-ed4-00016553" target="_blank" rel="noopener">that</a>, “The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology.” This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/frankenstein-how-mary-shelleys-sci-fi-classic-offers-lessons-for-us-today-about-the-dangers-of-playing-god-175520" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. Image: Shutterstock

Books

REVIEW: Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Warning! This article contains spoilers. Dr Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) has returned with his flying cape sidekick to save earth - but this time there’s more than one that needs help. The unshakeable do-gooder, with his grey-winged hair, is pulled into a deadly game of cat- and-mouse. Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) is a terrifying witch who chases America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) across different dimensions for her superpower - the ability to jump through the multiverse. Maximoff leaves a trail of destruction in her path and it falls to Dr Strange to put an end to her madness. If he fails, then you can wave goodbye to this earth and all the other earths floating out there in the infinite cosmos. Hollywood is pumping out superhero movies at such a fast rate, it’s almost impossible to keep up with the pace as a viewer. The Multiverse of Madness assumes you have watched at least one Avengers film, part of the Wanda Vision series and the first Dr Strange. Oh, and don’t forget Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. If you haven’t seen any of them, good luck trying to understand who is who. <iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aWzlQ2N6qqg" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> There’s plenty of action and exploding heads to keep the unversed audience member entertained. Director Sam Raimi weaves in elements of horror along with a few jump scares. His personal touch falls short of making the superhero franchise feel new. At its best, it just adds a fresh twist to an overdone genre. There is only one annoying little detail in the film. It’s so teeny-tiny, but it hurts as much as a rose thorn stuck in your side. It’s nothing to get worked up over. Right? Wrong. Most, if not all, superhero films are packed with undertones of American patriotism. Superman wears a red cape and a blue, tight-fitting onesie (the colours of the American flag); Iron Man is held captive in a cave in the Middle East before he blasts his way to freedom (America, f*** yeah!); and Captain America needs no explanation (his name says it all). In most cases, at least, these references aren’t screaming in your face. They dwell in the background so you can continue to enjoy the film at its surface level. That’s not the case with Dr Strange. America Chavez is a central character who is not only named after the United States, but she is also dressed in a jacket with the stars and stripes printed onto the back of it. She is, literally, a walking flag of the country. Every time Dr Strange spoke about saving America, I couldn’t help but cringe as I had a sneaking suspicion he was not referring to the young girl. When the character needed a dialogue break, his monster-bashing sidekicks were filling in the blanks with their own toe-curling lines about America. She needs to be saved, her powers could be used for bad if they fall into the wrong hands, with great power comes great responsibility. Blah, blah, blah. For all its shortcomings, Raimi manages to pull off an entertaining two hours and six minutes. The action is backed up by strong performances from Cumberbatch, Olsen and Gomez. Written by Aidan Wondracz. Image: YouTube

Movies

‘A gentleman with the mad soul of an Irish convict poet’: remembering Chris Bailey, and the blazing comet that was The Saints

Inala in the early 70s was bleak. A Brisbane suburb of wide dusty streets, treeless and bland. A planned community, meant to grow over time. Austerity, accented by the cheap houses – weatherboard, red brick, concrete – stifled the suburb like a blanket on a hot February night. It was boring. Beyond boring. The only concession to communal childhood joy was the pool, and the crazy concrete skate rink. But if you wanted a creative outlet, you needed to search elsewhere. Ivor Hay, (future Saints drummer), was heading to the picture theatre in Sherwood one Saturday night in early 1971, "and I saw Jeffrey [Wegener – another Saints drummer] with these two longhairs, Chris [Bailey] and Ed [Kuepper]. They were off to a birthday party in Corinda and asked me along. That was our first night." Bailey was raised by his mum, Bridget, in a house alive with siblings – mostly girls, who looked after the kid. He got away with a lot. “None of us had a lot of money,” Hay tells me. "Both Chris and I were raised by single mums in reasonably sized families. Chris’ mum was pretty feisty, with this Belfast accent which was just fantastic. They all looked after ‘Christopher’, he could do all sorts of things and they would accommodate him. His mum would have a go at him about the noise, but we’d just go to his bedroom and rehearse and bugger everybody else in the house!" Kuepper taught Hay to play the guitar: Stones and Beatles and Hendrix. Hay passed the knowledge down to Bailey, who was keen to learn. Neither Kuepper nor Bailey learned to drive, so Hay became the driver in those wide suburbs where driving and cars were everything. There was politics in Bailey’s house – his sister Margaret chained herself to the school gates to protest uniform policy – but this pervaded the town. The conservative government had no time for the young, and the police force did their best to make life difficult. But there was a sense that these young men were making something new. As Hay says, "We used to sing <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internationale">The Internationale</a> at parties. I don’t know if we were revolutionaries, but we had that sense that something was happening. [With the band] we were doing something that we thought was going to change something. Chris was particularly good at pushing things, at being anti-everything." <h2>Out of Inala</h2> To escape the suburb was to head north to the railway line. It was the lifeline to the centre of Brisbane – record stores, bookshops and other forms of life. Kuepper remembers going into the city with Bailey. "We had intended to steal a record, and we went into Myers […] both wearing army disposal overcoats […] these two long haired guys walking into the record department with these overcoats […] surprisingly enough, we were successful!" Like the railway line, Ipswich Road joins Brisbane to the old coal town of Ipswich. It slices through these western suburbs, carrying hoons in muscle cars and streams of commuters, the occasional screaming cop car or ambulance. On Thursday nights, the boys used to sit at the Oxley Hotel, overlooking Ipswich Road, “just sit up there having beers, we wouldn’t have been much more than 17 or 18 at that time. Chatting about all sorts of stuff,” says Hay. "Chris and Ed were comic collectors and Stan Lee was the hero […] there were political discussions, philosophical discussions. Those guys could talk underwater." They talked and played and sang. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5YP_tsPzmg&t=905s">And Bailey had the voice</a>. It was a force, not just loud and tuneful, but full of snarl and spit. Soon they had songs, and in 1976 scraped the money together to record and release their first single on their own Fatal Records label. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpMwMDqOprc">(I’m) Stranded</a> took Bailey out of Inala, out of Brisbane and into the world. He never looked back. <h2>A changed city</h2> The Saints released three albums in as many years – (I’m) Stranded, Eternally Yours and Prehistoric Sounds – before Kuepper and Hay returned from the UK to Australia, leaving Bailey to his own devices. Bailey remained in Europe, releasing a cluster of solo albums and many Saints records over the next 40 years. He wrote some achingly beautiful songs. It is a testament to his talents as a songwriter that Bruce Springsteen <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ4a_tgJp4I">recorded a version</a>of Bailey’s Just Like Fire Would in 2014. There’s no doubt that Bailey and The Saints changed Brisbane forever. People around the world who love music know Brisbane exists because of The Saints, The Go-Betweens and bands like them. Peter Milton Walsh (The Apartments) was one of many who benefited from The Saints legacy, "They blazed through our young lives like comets. Showed so many what was possible – that you could write your way out of town." “Without The Saints,” Mark Callaghan of The Riptides/Gang Gajang told me, “we probably wouldn’t have started. ” "They just made it all seem doable. It was like, ‘Well, they’re from Brisbane!’ So we started our first band, and at our first gig we covered (I’m) Stranded! We even took a photo of the abandoned house in Petrie Terrace with (I’m) Stranded painted on the wall. But it never crossed our minds to stand in front of this. It would be sacrilege, you know? And we were trying to work out a way that we could get it off the wall intact, because we recognised it was a historical document." Chris Bailey isn’t the first of our creative children to leave this life behind and move on into memory. With their passing, like the returning comet, the past is freshly illuminated, allowing us to look back at our young lives. Back when the future was broad in front of us, urged on by voices like Bailey’s to open our eyes and see the world. And Bailey’s was a unique voice. Kenny Gormley (The Cruel Sea) remembers him singing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYA5WdP47Y0">Ghost Ships,</a> "But ah, I’ll never ever forget seeing Chris pick that shanty, alone at sea in a crowded room, holding us sway, wet face drunk and shining, quiet and stilled in storm, cracked voiced with closed eye and open heart. And that was Bailey, a gentleman with the mad soul of an Irish convict poet.“ Image credits: Getty Images This article originally appeared in <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-gentleman-with-the-mad-soul-of-an-irish-convict-poet-remembering-chris-bailey-and-the-blazing-comet-that-was-the-saints-181059" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>.

Music

"Why Phil Tippett will never do another film like ‘Mad God’

Phil Tippett, the man behind physical special effects seen in the likes of Star Wars, Jurassic Park, and Robocop has spoken about his latest project, <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.madgodmovie.com/madgod-home" target="_blank">Mad God</a>, and why he could never do it again. The independent stop-motion film, funded partly through online platform Kickstarter, took the iconic animator 30 years to make, and premiered at the annual cult cinema festival, Monster Fest, in Melbourne this year. <img style="width: 500px; height: 281.25px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7846211/tippett3.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/49414a0037f44b4d9eb0c8ee60851f41" /> Phil Tippett’s most memorable monster creations include the wooly Tauntauns which appeared in ‘The Empire Strikes Back’. Image: @tippettstudio (Instagram) Tippett’s latest feature is a wordless, nightmarish film that follows a figure in a gas mask known as the Assassin, as they make their way through a landscape filled with monsters, zombies, disturbing science experiments, and other grotesque forms. Speaking to <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/movies/inside-the-nightmares-of-hollywood-s-mad-god-monster-maker-20211129-p59d29.html" target="_blank">The Sydney Morning Herald</a>, Tippett said his work comes “entirely from the unconscious”, which saw him experience a “psychic breakdown” while making Mad God. “You can only know your own mind. So my mind is a cage, and that’s where I am unconsciously trapped,” he said. “But within is an entire universe. And you never know what path you’re gonna go down. <img style="width: 500px; height: 281.25px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7846210/tippett1.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/8a0d0c80699746d49efe33cfadc5ee60" /> Grotesque figures and monsters fill Phil Tippett’s latest film. Images: Mad God Movie “And Mad God led to a psychic breakdown for me, and then I had to go to the psych ward for a little while, and then it took me six weeks to recover.” Tippett went on to say finishing Mad God came both as a personal triumph and a relief, as something he would not repeat. “I will never do another Mad God, ever. It’s impossible. That’s a once-in-a-lifetime deal,” he explained. But, he said he already has an outline and “about 800 storyboards” made up for Pequin’s Pendequin, a sequel that’s intentionally more commercial and influenced by classic Warner Brothers and Popeye cartoons. <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CJ6ZZ1yDVo0/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CJ6ZZ1yDVo0/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank">A post shared by Phil Tippett (@madphilg)</a> </div> </blockquote> Despite its clear change in direction, Tippett conceded that it will still contain elements of his style. “As the canary sings one song, it’ll get my flavour in it somehow,” he added. “There’s a certain amount of darkness to it. But it’s a lot more humorous, with very vibrant colours, and … happy.” See the trailer for Mad God below. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pbW5ns_pIZo" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> Images: Tippett Studio / Getty Images

Movies

"Oh my God": Woman discovers $1 billion in her bank account

American woman Julia Yonkowski got the surprise of her life when she went to withdraw $20 from her bank account and saw $1 billion instead. According to the bank receipt she received from Chase Bank, she had $999,985,855.94 in her account. “Oh my God, I was horrified. I know most people would think they won the lottery but I was horrified,” she explained. “When I put in for the $20, the machine came back and said we’ll give you the $20 but that’ll cause an overdraft and you will be charged and I said, ‘Oh just forget it,’”. She hasn't touched her account since Saturday night. “I know I’ve read stories about people that took the money or took out money, and then they had to repay it and I wouldn’t do that anyway because it’s not my money,” she said. “It kind of scares me because you know with cyber threats. You know I don’t know what to think.” She's tried reaching out to Chase Bank several times but gets "tied up" with their automated system. “I just can’t get through. I get tied up with their automated system and I can’t get a person,” she said. However, a representative for Chase Bank confirmed that the high amount of money was a fraud prevention method. It also explains why Yonkowski wasn't able to get the original $20 she tried to withdraw from her account. According to the bank, Yonkowski's late husband was also named on the joint account and the bank requires proper documentation to release the account to a sole individual.

Money & Banking

James Bond is more than a (sexist) secret agent. He is a fertility god, a Dionysus of the modern era

James Bond is more than a (sexist) secret agent. He is a fertility god, a Dionysus of the modern era “History isn’t kind to people who play God,” quips James Bond to supervillain Safin in the trailer for No Time to Die. The film’s release has been delayed yet again, to April 2021. It will mark Daniel Craig’s swansong as 007 and speculation continues as to who will be the next Bond. Will it be Idris Elba, Tom Hardy or perhaps a woman? Bond has long been criticised for his sexist attitudes, with even Judi Dench’s M in GoldenEye (1995) dubbing him a “sexist, misogynist dinosaur” . But what if we view him through the prism of Greek mythology? Is Bond, in fact, a contemporary incarnation of Dionysus, the god of wine, pleasure and fertility? In Greek mythology, the gods punish mortals for the sin of hubris. In our pop-culture pantheon, Bond is a deity. Dionysus travelled throughout the ancient world, sometimes by boat in the Aegean islands, sometimes in a winged chariot. Bond also circumnavigates the globe, equally at home on yachts or in helicopters. But his chariot of choice is an Aston Martin. Its logo? A pair of wings. Secrets of wine – and martinis Wherever Dionysus went he initiated his followers in the secrets of wine-making. Wherever Bond goes he initiates the mixologist in the secrets of making the perfect Vesper martini. In Ian Fleming’s Diamonds are Forever (1956), Bond tells the bartender to combine three measures of Gordon’s gin, one of vodka and half a measure of Kina Lillet with a thick slice of lemon peel and poured into a deep champagne goblet. In Casino Royale (2006), he adds the martini must be shaken “until it’s ice cold.” Unlike mortals, Bond’s prodigious consumption of alcohol does him no harm, indeed he is hailed as “the best shot in the Secret Service.” In a study of the novels published in the British Medical Journal in 2013, researchers estimated Bond consumed an average of 92 units of alcohol per week with a maximum daily intake peaking at 49.8 units. There were days when Bond abstained – 12.5 out of a total 87.5 days – but mostly because he was being held prisoner. Weapons of disguise Dionysus carries a thyrsus: a sacred pinecone-tipped staff wreathed in vines. The thyrus is a phallic symbol, sometimes displayed with a kantharos wine cup, denoting female sexuality. The union of the two created a powerful representation of fertility and rebirth. Dionysus also turned his thyrsus into a dangerous weapon by secreting an iron tip in its point. As a secret agent, Bond conceals his Walther PPK pistol in a hidden holster, but one of his most lethal weapons is disguised as a cigarette – a potent symbol of sexual union in cinema, where smoking a cigarette signifies the completion of copulation. In You Only Live Twice (1967) the villain makes the fatal mistake of allowing Bond “one last fag.” It turns out to be tipped with a rocket-propelled bullet, proving that cigarettes aren’t just lethal for smokers. Gods of possession Dionysus was deeply attractive to his female followers, Maenads, who would drink themselves into a frenzy to be possessed by the god. Likewise, Bond is pursued by a bevy of beautiful women – Pussy Galore, Plenty O’Toole and Honey Rider – panting to be possessed. As with the Maenads, devotion to Bond comes with its perils. In Live and Let Die (1973), Bond girl, Solitaire loses her psychic powers after a close encounter of the passionate kind with Bond and becomes a target for heroin baron, Dr Kananga. In Goldfinger (1964), Jill Masterton is punished by the eponymous villain for betraying him to Bond, dying of skin suffocation when he covers her in gold paint. This puts a new spin on the Midas myth in which Dionysus granted the king’s wish to be blessed with the golden touch, only to discover that it is a curse making it impossible to eat or even embrace his daughter without turning her into metal. Ecstasy and death In ancient Greece, the number seven was sacred and composed of the number three (the heavenly male) and the number four (the heavenly female). Bond’s number in the secret service – Agent 007 – is thus the perfect number to represent a modern-day fertility god. Like Dionysus who is depicted in a number of forms which range from an older, bearded god to a long-haired youth, Bond has appeared in a variety of guises from the debonair David Niven to the strapping Daniel Craig. Yet regardless of his age and physique, Bond’s dual Dionysian nature brings either divine ecstasy in bed, or brutal death to his foes. Dionysus almost dies before he is born but his father Zeus saves him. Later he returns from the dead after he is dismembered by the Titans. Bond says, “You only live twice: once when you are born and once when you look death in the face.” Like Dionysus, Bond is resurrected in Skyfall (2012) after he is accidentally shot by Moneypenny. The bullet penetrates his body causing him to fall off a train and into a waterfall where he sinks to the bottom. But Bond is immortal. He returns to save another day. When it finally reaches cinemas, No Time to Die will be the last hurrah for Craig, but gods do not die. Bond will live on. Written by Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan. This article first appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/james-bond-is-more-than-a-sexist-secret-agent-he-is-a-fertility-god-a-dionysus-of-the-modern-era-131040">The Conversation</a>.

Movies

“Thank God for you”: Pierce Brosnan’s heartfelt post to wife of 19 years

Pierce Brosnan has doted on his beloved wife of 19 years, Keely Shaye Smith, as she celebrated turning 57 on Friday. The 67-year-old James Bond star took to his Instagram account to deliver a sweet message to his love, revealing the presents she was gifted her with on her special day. He posted a snap of himself and Keely beaming as she held onto a glass of fizz and wrote: "Happy birthday Keely my darling, thank God for you angel heart." The star added that he presented her with some artwork he created himself. “A few paintings on this day, with ever my love. 'Spring' still in the works! ... 'My Old Chair'." The Hollwood actor also uploaded snaps of his quirky paintings. <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CFlWqv6ggHD/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="12"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <a style="color: #000; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CFlWqv6ggHD/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank">Happy birthday Keely my darling, thank God for you angel heart. A few paintings on this day, with ever my love. “Spring” still in the works! ... “My Old Chair”</a> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;">A post shared by <a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/piercebrosnanofficial/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank"> Pierce Brosnan</a> (@piercebrosnanofficial) on Sep 25, 2020 at 7:52pm PDT </div> </blockquote> Keely showed her gratitude at the sweet post by taking to the comments to leave kissing lip emojis. The loved-up pair first met on a beach in Mexico in 1994 and went on to marry at Ballintubber Abbey in County Mayo, Ireland in 2001. Their wonderful romance heated up just before Pierce made his Bond debut in 1995 hit film Goldeneye. The pair have two children together, Dylan and Paris, while Brosnan previously had three children from his marriage, his first wife, Cassandra Harris, who passed away from ovarian cancer in 1991. Brosnan has three biological sons, including Sean Brosnan, 36, from his marriage to Cassandra. The generous actor also adopted Cassandra's children from her first marriage, Charlotte Brosnan and Christopher Brosnan. Both Charlotte and Christopher went on to take Pierce's name following the death of their biological father and Cassandra's second husband, Dermot Harris. Sadly, Charlotte passed away from ovarian cancer at the age of 42 in 2013, the same illness that had taken her mother's and maternal grandmother's life.

Relationships

Heartbroken son speaks out after Ruby Princess cruise ship death: “We’re just extremely mad”

The Ruby Princess cruise ship quickly became a coronavirus hotspot with deadly consequences after eleven passengers passed away. Tasmanian man, 81-year-old Leonard Fisher was one of the victims who lost his life to the virus after boarding the cruise ship and his heartbroken son, Greg has spoken up about the horrific ordeal. Speaking to 60 minutes, Greg said he wished he’d done more to convince his father out of leaving for his trip but his dad convinced him that if there had been anything wrong on the ship, Princess Cruises would have cancelled the cruise. "He said at my age, I'll probably never get a chance to do another trip like this again," Greg told Bartlett. However, as time went on Greg noticed his dad become increasingly more concerned throughout his trip. "He said that he had a gentleman sitting beside him that was coughing and coughing, and coughing, he had his hand over his mouth, and he was quite concerned about that," Greg told 60 Minutes. "He did say that if he was aware that how bad this virus was, and if it was on the ship, he would never have got on the ship." Greg told Channel 9 both he and his dad had trusted the cruise line company as "At no stage were the passengers told that there was a possibility of coronavirus on that boat. They were unaware of any sickness that was on that boat, it was just so wrong," Np passengers were told that in fact, 104 people on board were sick with respiratory infections and 15 had to be swabbed by the doctor onboard due to his fear of suspected COVID-19. Cruise passengers Gary and Kelly Callaghan expressed their frustrations that they were not warned that the disease had made its way on to the ship. "We are extremely mad, sad and cranky that we weren't told that somebody potentially had it on the ship. We're just extremely mad that we weren't told anything," she said. Neither Kelly or Gary were tested upon departure but instead were ushered quickly off the ship and were allowed to return into their communities and back to their homes. It is possible thousands were infected. "We were all expecting to be tested when we got off just to be sure, to be safe, you're letting us out in the public around people and nobody tested us and I really think that was disgraceful," Gary said. NSW Health deemed that the ship was a “low risk setting”, despite being told there were 15 passengers who had been swabbed for coronavirus. 2700 passengers were disembarked without being tested. There are 600 cases of coronavirus linking back to the ruby cruise ship and 11 deaths. The Ruby Princess is now the largest single source of COVID-19 deaths in Australia.

Family & Pets

In the company of mountain gods

Justine Tyerman practises her “one foot after the other” mantra on day two of the Bear Trek in the Swiss Alps. Kleine Scheidegg Pass looked formidable in the early morning light, shaded by the massive granite North Face of the Eiger. I was tempted to bury my head under my cosy down duvet, feign a pulled ligament or something and allow Guide Birgit and Team Super-Fit to hike on without me. I had made the mistake of studying the profile of Day Two of the Bear Trek the night before and discovered that before we even started the climb, the track plunged all the way to the valley floor, appropriately called Grund, adding hours and vertical metres to an already challenging ascent. The warning bells I had earlier ignored before I left New Zealand were clanging away again inside my head, but so too were my Kiwi tramping friend’s words that had kept me going the previous day: “One foot after the other and you’ll get there... eventually.” Besides, I was the only Kiwi in the group and I couldn’t let the Aussies get the better of me. I floundered my way out of duvets and pillows so deep, they must have placed the entire Swiss goose population in serious jeopardy, showered, pulled on my hiking gear and presented myself in the dining room with a brave smile on my face. Over a hearty breakfast at our lovely Hotel Kirchbühl high above the village of Grindelwald, Birgit studied the itinerary for Day Two. The detailed route map proposed by Eurotrek, the company that organised our hike, went from Grindelwald to Lauterbrunnen via Kleine Scheidegg Pass, covering 19.5km, ascending 1230m and descending 1465m, a hiking time of seven hours, 25 minutes. Birgit frowned... and then beamed. “I think we’ll take the train to Alpiglen,” she said. “No point in walking all the way down just to climb back up again. And we’re staying in Wengen for the night which is much closer than Lauterbrunnen.” Tall, lean Ms Super-Duper Fit was crestfallen but I was so relieved I hugged Birgit. What a wonderful, wise woman, I thought. How I love the Swiss Transport System. There’s always a train, bus, cablecar, gondola or funicular right where you need it. Catching the train to Alpiglen and staying at Wengen would lop off about three hours and hundreds of vertical metres. This would enable us to have a more relaxed, enjoyable experience with ample time to revel in the landscape, take photos and stop for a leisurely lunch on this most pristine of sunny autumn days. The first rays of sun kissed the tip of the snow-capped peaks as we set off, well-fuelled, after a substantial hikers’ breakfast. The train deposited us at Alpiglen where we began the climb to Kleine Scheidegg Pass, 2061m. The ascent was steep and steady but the unfolding of the landscape as the mighty Bernese triumvirate - the Eiger, Mönsch and Jungfrau - came into view, made every step rewarding. Bright sunshine, clear skies and mild temperatures added to the magic of the day. We crossed gurgling, gin-clear, ice-cold streams trickling down lush, green mountain pastures, and stopped to pat friendly cows with tinkling bells. They were so tame, they licked us with their long purple-black, sandpaper tongues. Encounters with other hikers and bikers of different nationalities were more frequent than on the previous day but we had the well-formed trail largely to ourselves. I was last to “summit” the pass but the heady exhilaration of having made it to the top obliterated the pain in my calf muscles and thumping of my heart. The Aussies were good sports. They didn’t seem to mind waiting for me. With breath-taking alpine panoramas, there was no down-time for them – cameras and iPhones were working overtime. Above Kleine Scheidegg, in the shadow of the 3970m Eiger, there’s a tiny museum that documents the triumphs and tragedies of past climbing expeditions on the treacherous Nordwand (North Face). The stories are chilling especially the horrific tale of the climber in 1936 who, despite valiant rescue attempts, froze to death on the end of his rope after his three companions perished. He was just metres from safety. The Sphinx Terrace and observatory at the “Top of Europe” was visible high above us - building such a structure on a narrow ridge 3571m above sea level is a marvel of engineering. So too the cogwheel Jungfrau Railway train from Kleine Scheidegg to Europe’s highest railway station (3454m). Opened in 1912, the top 7km of the 9.4km of railway climbs through a tunnel hewn in the rock of the Eiger and Mönch, an audacious project that took 16 years to complete. As we sat in the sun gazing at the mountain gods, I felt a deep sense of reverence to be in their company. It was a quintessentially Swiss day – a sprinkling of fresh snow dusted the peaks, the edelweiss was in flower, and the alpine chalets were competing for the brightest window boxes and neatest firewood pile. The Swiss stack their firewood under the eaves against the chalet walls or in purpose-built sheds. The pieces are always perfectly cut to exactly the same size and arranged with the utmost symmetry – like an artwork. “It’s a Swiss thing,” Birgit said, “a point of national pride. A messy wood pile would be shameful in Switzerland.” Descending from Kleine Scheidegg Pass, the rumble of an avalanche echoed around the mountains as a slab of ice broke free from a blue-white glacier and thundered down the valley, an awesome sight and sound from a safe distance. Late in the season, a few of the mountain restaurants were already closed but the Bergrestaurant Allmend was open and served an excellent lunch platter. With only a short downward hike to Wengen ahead of us, a little schnapps was in order, “a Swiss tradition,” Birgit said. An easy downhill hike from the Allmend took us straight to the Silberhorn, our hotel in the centre of the delightful, car-free resort of Wengen. The exquisite picture-postcard village, with its traditional wooden chalets and belle époque hotels, is perched on a sunny terrace 400 metres above the Lauterbrunnen Valley with stunning vistas of the Jungfrau and Schilthorn. Famous for its World Cup Lauberhorn ski piste, Wengen also has excellent year-round, family-friendly activities for everyone including skiing, toboggan runs and winter and summer hiking trails. Mountain trains and cableways provide access to spectacular vantage points throughout the Jungfrau region. After a relaxing soak in the Silberhorn’s outside Jacuzzi, I managed to do justice to a delectable five-course feast at the hotel’s excellent restaurant - melon and prosciutto, lentil soup, salads, beef ragout and apricot tart... among many other choices. High altitude can sometimes disrupt sleep patterns but the exertion of the day and the larger- than-usual-dinner... and a glass or two of wine... acted as a powerful sedative for me. I fell asleep looking at the map of the next day’s hike with the words “22km, 2000m ascent, 1400m descent, 9 hours” swirling around in my mind – but by now, I was confident I would manage whatever trimmed-down version Birgit had in store up for us. I knew I’d reach my destination, eventually, simply by placing “one foot after the other...” Read more about <a href="https://www.oversixty.com.au/travel/international-travel/the-slow-coach">Day One of the trek</a>. Factbox: * The Bear Trek is part of the Via Alpina, a classic among long-distance hikes in Switzerland. The Via Alpina is a challenging mountain hike through the picture-perfect landscapes of Switzerland’s northern alps. A series of 20 daily stages takes hikers over 14 alpine passes and through a great variety of alpine terrain, villages, flora and fauna - a hiking enthusiast’s dream. Mountain restaurants and hotels provide meals and accommodation along the way. Eurotrek organised our accommodation and luggage transfers so we just carried a light day pack. Justine Tyerman was a guest of <a href="http://www.myswitzerland.com/hiking">Switzerland Tourism</a>, travelled courtesy of <a href="https://www.swiss.com/au/en">Swiss Travel Pass</a> and hiked in the <a href="https://jungfrauregion.swiss/en/winter/">Jungfrau Region</a> with <a href="https://www.eurotrek.ch/en">Eurotrek.</a>

International Travel

"Mad and dangerous": Greta Thunberg cops another round from Jeremy Clarkson

Jeremy Clarkson has made his feelings known about teenage climate change activist Greta Thunberg again as he now believes she is “dangerous”. He was speaking to Seven’s Sunrise Europe bureau chief Hugh Whitfeld to promote his TV series The Grand Tour when he made the claims. Initially, Clarkson spoke about the impacts of global warming in Southeast Asia and how it had changed his view. “I don’t think I have ever actually seen the effect of global warming. When you see those houses on stilts in the show … and the water is miles away, that is a remarkable thing,” he said, according to <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/current-affairs/jeremy-clarkson-lashes-out-at-dangerous-greta-thunberg-once-more/news-story/f933f9d235e01981965499b5e5727ac2" target="_blank">news.com.au</a>. “And I know there will be a load of kids go, ‘Ha, you see. There you are’. Fine. Now go to school, learn science and do something about it.” However, his views on Thunberg have not changed. “She is mad and dangerous, and she is causing young children sleepless nights,” Clarkson said. “I think she needs to go back to school and shut up.” This isn’t the first time he has lashed out at Thunberg, as he said that she was a “spoilt brat” after her passionate speech at the United Nations. “We gave you mobile phones and laptops and the internet. We created the social media you use every day and we run the banks that pay for it all,” Clarkson said in a column for <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10022396/greta-thunberg-meltdown-wont-help-world/" target="_blank">The Sun</a>. “So how dare you stand there and lecture us, you spoilt brat.”

Travel Trouble

“God is speaking to you”: Israel Folau preaches that bushfires and drought are God’s punishment for abortion and same-sex marriage

Israel Folau has caused further outrage by suggesting that the current bushfires and drought that is ravaging Australia is God’s punishment for legalising same-sex marriage and abortion. Folau spoke at The Truth of Jesus Christ Church in Kenshurt, north west of Sydney. “The message I mainly want to speak about today is mainly for the people who are outside within the world,” he began. “I’ve been looking around at the events that have been happening around Australia in the last couple of weeks with the bushfires and the droughts and all these things that are currently happening.” "I'm doing this out of love for people to be able to hear this message and receive it with open hearts." He said that Australians could solve the problems within the country by repealing these laws. "I am speaking to Australia - they have changed this law and changed the ordinance," he said. "They have changed that law and legalised same-sex marriage and now those things are okay in society, going against the laws of what God says. “Abortion - it's okay now to murder and kill infants, unborn children, and they deem that to be okay,” he continued. <iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2F592277641115135%2Fvideos%2F528446637884157%2F&show_text=0&width=267" width="267" height="476" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe> "This scripture is speaking to Australia. You have changed the law and changed the ordinance. Look how rapid these bushfires, these droughts, all these things that came in a short period time. "You think it's a coincidence or not? God is speaking to you guys, Australia, you need to repent and you need to take these laws and turn it back to following what is right by God, what God says in his word." Many people have been outraged by his comments, as four people have died in NSW alone and bushfires continue to threaten homes in NSW and QLD. However, Folau warned that the worst is yet to come. "What you see out there in the world, it's only a little taste of what God's judgment is like," he said. "The news now are saying that these bushfires are the worst they've ever seen in Australia - they haven’t even seen anything." Longtime supporter and 2GB radio host Alan Jones is usually a fan of Folau, but has quickly urged him to “button up”. “Israel is a lovely human being, I know him well. Israel, button up. Button up. “These comments don’t help.”

News

“I’m not mad at this:” Naomi Osaka loses world No. 1 rank to Aussie star

New York title winner Naomi Osaka has crashed out of the US Open with a stunning defeat to Belinda Bencic. The 21-year-old lost for the third time to Bencic in one hour and 26 minutes under the closrd roof at Arthur Ashe Stadium on a rainy Monday. "The challenge cannot be bigger playing Naomi," Bencic said. "She has a lot of power, me not so much. I play like chess and anticipate." Osaka broke to love in the fifth game of the second set on a double fault from the Japense. The Title holder’s defeat has slipped her to fourth in the rankings, according to the WTA with French Open champion Ash Barty returning to the top of the ladder ahead of Karolina Pliskova and Simona Halep despite all being out already in New York. Osaka’s elimination paints an interesting picture with the top seeds being out of the quarter-finals for the first time in Open era. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> Big results fo Belinda Bencic, 22, and Donna Vekic,23. Two teenage prodigies - Bencic made QF here as a 17yo was Top 10 at 18, Vekic was Top 100 at 16yo - who have had to fight through a lot to get to this stage. Both in the midst of standout seasons. Both good friends. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/USOpen?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#USOpen</a> <a href="https://t.co/Mc4C0SnkWO">pic.twitter.com/Mc4C0SnkWO</a> — WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) <a href="https://twitter.com/WTA_insider/status/1168586115919556609?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 2, 2019</a></blockquote> The former No. 1 told reporters the loss stung a lot less than her first-week exits at Roland Garros and Wimbledon over the summer. "Right now I have this feeling of sadness, but I also feel like I have learned so much during this tournament," Osaka said. "Honestly, of course I wanted to defend this tournament. "I feel like the steps that I have taken as a person have been much greater than I would imagine at this point. "So I hope that I can keep growing. I know that if I keep working hard, then of course I'll have better results." "I mean, in Wimbledon I walked out on you guys," Osaka teareully explained, referring to a tearful end to her press conference after losing in the firsts round to Yulia Putintseva. "In Roland Garros, I came straight from the match, so I was all gross and I just wanted to get out of there. In true Osaka fashion, the 21-year-old has maintained her composure and hoped to bounce back in future games. "Honestly, I'm not that mad at this," Osaka said. "Of course I can look at this and be very disappointed and mad, but I'm not mad at it. Of course I would like to reach higher, like rounds. That's definitely what I'll aim for in Australia. "But for right now, I think the level of tennis that I was playing in Europe was not that great. Coming here: two quarterfinals, Round of 16. "Hopefully I'll do well in Japan because I always do well in Japan, and just keep building off of it to end the season."

News

Meet Mel Gibson’s lookalike son!

Mel Gibson became a Hollywood heartthrob the instant he appeared on the silver screen in the Mad Max series. Now, there’s a whole new Gibson on the scene and he looks just like his handsome dad in his younger years. Louie Gibson, a 29-year-old filmmaker, told the <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/sydney-confidential/louie-gibson-son-of-mel-you-are-who-you-are/news-story/7f5f20be5777ab36bf3e95e613ea0b8a" target="_blank">Daily Telegraph</a> he was very much aware of his striking resemblance to Mel. “I’m not as ugly as that guy,” he joked. “I say I’m a lot better looking than him.” <img width="499" height="345" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/44591/gibson_499x345.jpg" alt="Gibson" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"/> The filmmaker made his feature length debut this year with critically-acclaimed horror film Happy Hunting, revealing he funded the movie through his own production company rather than relying on his dad. “I’d like to be given my own shot to be myself and I think if you go about and do that, people will see that for what it is worth,” Louie explained. “If they don’t, f*** them.” Louie is one of Mel’s seven children with ex-wife Robyn. He has another daughter (Lucia, born 2009) with Russian pianist Oksana Grigorieva and a son (Lars Gerard, born 2017) with former equestrian vaulter Rosalind Ross. What do you think about Louie's striking resemblance to his famous dad Mel Gibson? Tell us in the comments below.

Movies

The most controversial song in history

Karen Fournier is Associate Professor of Music Theory at the University of Michigan. Since punk rock’s earliest days, the genre has sought to challenge social norms and traditions. But when the Sex Pistols came out with “God Save the Queen” 40 years ago, on May 27, 1977, it was instantly greeted with widespread, visceral condemnation. Released only months after the band’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6vY7av0P6E" target="_blank">infamous and expletive-laden television debut</a> on the Bill Grundy show in December 1976, many viewed the song as an all-out assault on the morals and values of British culture. Others saw it as an attack on civilization itself. London Councillor Bernard Brook Partridge <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLBr98UOBX0" target="_blank">described the song’s creators</a> as “the antithesis of humankind” and wished for their “sudden death.” Bernard Brook Partridge didn’t think too highly of punk music. What made “God Save the Queen” so much more menacing in the eyes of its critics than any other punk song released in 1977? Why did the <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-bbc-bans-the-sex-pistols-god-save-the-queen" target="_blank">BBC bar it from radio airplay</a>? And why was it denied its rightful place at the top of the U.K. Singles chart despite outselling the number-one hit of the time, Rod Stewart’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Azcy9_F0DCE" target="_blank">I Don’t Wanna Talk About It</a>”? Many think the song was denounced because it distilled punk’s key complaints into a single, targeted hit against British civic and political life, which was embodied by the royal family. Originally entitled “No Future,” the song ended up changing its name to “God Save the Queen,” an appropriation of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN9EC3Gy6Nk" target="_blank">British national anthem</a>. The Pistols’ version was an “anti-anthem,” a critique of Queen Elizabeth II, whose <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Jubilee_of_Elizabeth_II" target="_blank">Silver Jubilee</a> – a celebration to commemorate the 25th anniversary of her ascension to the throne – happened to coincide with the year of the song’s release. The artwork that accompanies the song depicts defaced images of her Jubilee portrait and torn pieces of the Union Jack and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Stewart_tartan" target="_blank">Royal Stewart tartan</a>. The lyrics, meanwhile, reflect the state of an empire that seemed to be imploding during <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/17090761" target="_blank">the economic downturn of the mid-1970s</a>: Oh when there's no future How can there be sin We're the flowers In the dustbin We're the poison In your human machine We're the future Your future! Taken together with its visuals, the song rings like a dire warning about the waning fortunes of the post-colonial British Empire at the very moment that it was celebrating its queen. Recent scholarly interest in the intersection of punk and religion <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Seditious-Theology-Punk-and-the-Ministry-of-Jesus/Johnson/p/book/9781409467014" target="_blank">gives a more nuanced reading</a> of the song’s title and lyrics. According to punk scholar Mark Johnson, where the British national anthem asks God to watch over the queen as she executes her duties, the Pistols’ version conflates the queen and the church over which she presides. Johnson argues that the song’s central message is that “if there really is no future, and thus no future judgment, then how can there be sin for there is no penalty?” The phrase “no future” – repeated 15 times during the song – becomes a call to arms against any authority that promises salvation in exchange for obedience. The song found a visual counterpart in the punk fashion designer Vivienne Westwood’s <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=vivienne+westwood&client=safari&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwifjc7rgITUAhXFYyYKHTRtBSgQ_AUICygC&biw=1440&bih=703" target="_blank">DESTROY T-shirt</a>, which infamously featured an upended crucifix superimposed on the Nazi swastika. Film clips of the band’s live performances and many photos from the period associate Rotten with the <a href="http://plasticbag2005.blogspot.ca/2014/07/new-john-lydon-book.html" target="_blank">T-shirt</a>. Unlike other punk songs of its time, “God Save the Queen” attracted criticism because it mixed signifiers of British pride and patriotism with one of the most reviled symbols in the world: the swastika. But for those who lived in London’s crumbling, impoverished neighbourhoods during the 1970s, the “victory” against the Nazis seemed like a myth. If winning the war promised a better future, British youth were still waiting. And as the song alleges, Nazism was simply replaced by a “fascist regime” intent on keeping the poor in their place by denying them educational opportunities and meaningful employment. It also overlaid this political critique with a sharp stab at the Church of England, which the band viewed as complicit in the subjugation of those it was supposed to help. Where other punk songs only hinted at the source of the economic and social problems in the U.K. in the mid-1970s, the Pistols were prepared to name their enemy. Until “God Save the Queen,” no punk band had pointed directly at the queen or the church as the source of all societal ills. And this is what made them sinners – and even treasonous – to the band’s critics. John (“Rotten”) Lydon <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoXHgBhWbyw" target="_blank">has since explained</a> that the song was a counterattack against these critics: “There we have it. More sinned against than sinning, don’t you think? I’d like to sum up with what my real opinion of censorship is, but quite frankly, I’d be censored for it. So I’ll let you guess the rest.” “God Save the Queen” can be located in a rich history of protest songs. Stretching back to genres like folk and soul, it’s most prevalent today in genres like rap. What these songs hold in common is a willingness to speak truth to power. And with many angry over Donald Trump’s election in America, we’ve already seen at least one artist, the rapper YG, use the blunt, in-your-face style of the Sex Pistols with his song “<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/music_box/2017/02/could_yg_s_fdt_f_donald_trump_become_america_s_no_1_song.html" target="_blank">FDT</a>” (“F— Donald Trump”). Written by Karen Fournier. First appeared on <a href="http://theconversation.com/" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>. <img width="1" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/77767/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" alt="The Conversation"/>

Music

Why you have to experience the madness that is Bloomsday

The Irish love a good party and Bloomsday is one of the best! What is it? The iconic Irish novel Ulysses, written by James Joyce, is set in Dublin June 16, 1904. The book was published in 1922 and soon after people began to use this date to celebrate all things Joyce. The name Bloomsday comes from the name of the book’s protagonist, Leopold Bloom. The date had personal significance for Joyce too – it was the day he went on his first date with the women who would become his wife, Nora Barnacle. Bloomsday is now marked around the world, but the biggest celebration is in Dublin with up to 10,000 people making the literary pilgrimage. What happens? The Bloomsday festival has expanded over the years and now officially runs for around a week leading up to June 16. A huge range of literary activities happen around the city, like readings, plays, expert talks and museum exhibitions. Join a pub crawl or whiskey and food trail to get a taste of traditional Irish hospitality. On the day, Joyce fans from around the world make their way around Dublin dressed in classic Edwardian costume, checking off many of the locations mentioned in the book. The day starts with the same full Irish breakfast eaten by Leopold himself - bacon, eggs, sausages, baked beans, tomato, black and white pudding, and potatoes all fried in butter, along with a side of liver and kidneys. Stops during the day include pubs, a hospital, a cemetery, the National Library, a newspaper office and other houses that feature in the book. And as with any good Irish celebration, there will be plenty of Guinness and whiskey to keep you satiated. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yeDuK2hC4Ec" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> How much is it? You can join in on the day for free and all the main stops are listed on the James Joyce website (jamesjoyce.ie/bloomsday). There are plenty of free events around town, like live music at pubs or readings of the novel. Other events require tickets and prices range from around €10 up to €60.

International Travel

Reflecting on my spirituality throughout the years

Margaret Cunningham, 61, is ‘semi-retired’ from her role in digital communications. She is a hobby writer who particularly enjoys writing articles with a reflective viewpoint. A lifelong passion of health and fitness means she is known in her community as ‘that lady who runs.' The In Hindsight series, of which this story is part of, is a collection of stories and moments that have impacted my life. They are snippets of insights and experiences. In the end, these stories will tell the tale of the dash (-) between the dates of my first and last breath. I want these stories to mean something – to let all who read them know the person behind the tags of daughter, sister, mother, wife and grandmother. My mother led an eventful life. Her eulogy certainly revealed a woman with an adventurous spirit, but as my brother delighted us all with the telling of her story I was struck by the thought that her life was just a list of events. The story of her soul, I don’t know. How she felt about her list of events. Her fears, her disappointments and regrets. Of being frightened, of loving, of lessons learned. What made her feel alive? I don’t know. She took this with her to the grave as did my father with his life. And this is at the heart of the In Hindsight series. Me is not my soul – I am more than a list of events. In every Hindsight story lies a chapter of my soul. So to be true to the Hindsight philosophy, I need to talk about the moment when I realised that everything I perceived God to be was a lie. Even now as I write the words, I feel its impact on my soul. From the moment of conception our lives are shaped by others. Within the womb and out of the womb, our first experiences of life are provided by parents or caregivers. In those early years it is adult decisions, opinions, customs, actions, and perceptions that shape what we believe and how we feel. As children we unconsciously accept the beliefs of those around us as the truth. No questions asked. So my parent’s authoritarian Catholicism was my first introduction to God. As far as I was concerned God was religion and religion was God. It’s interesting the impact this had on me. On the one hand, the moment I left home I never stepped back into the Catholic Church, yet God… well I just couldn’t get rid of God. In her book, Watching the Tree, author, Adeline Yen Mah says, “… change is the only constant. To that I will add also the universal human yearning for truth and wisdom.” I never quite know whether to use the term ‘fortunately’ or ‘unfortunately’, but the yearning for truth and wisdom seems to be the road I have travelled. Fitting God, or not fitting God, into our own worldview is a good way to keep God under control. We are good at shaping God to our expectations. God is who we want God to be. And so it was for me. From childhood to adulthood I constructed my own set of values and spiritual beliefs based on past and present life experiences. Naturally these evolved over time because real experiences do change us. The worldview of my youth and for much of adulthood was what I chose to believe. And as is the arrogance of youth, I believed that whatever my worldview was at the time, was the ultimate source of the truth. I still cringe at some of the zealous moments of my spiritual life as I moved through the ‘born again’ scene. As well-intentioned as they might have been, they had more to do with my own ignorance and ego than any display of tolerance, peace or truth. Most of all I feel cross with myself because I did not question. Nothing is what it seems – and this is exactly why we should question everything we think. Wasn’t it Albert Einstein who said, “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”? Kids are such natural questioners. They start off asking endless ‘why’ and ‘what if’ questions, but somewhere along the way fewer and fewer questions are asked. Why is that? Is it because as adults we think the constant ‘why’ and ‘what if’ questions tedious? Do we say ‘… go away I’m busy’ or do we laugh at a question because we think it silly? The fear of being knocked back, ridiculed or laughed at was very real for me as a child and this accompanied me into adulthood. I didn’t ask questions because I just believed everyone else’s truth. We all have a ‘spirituality’ whether we want one or not, even if we believe/don’t believe in God, or whether we are religious or not. Mention God, spirituality or religion and it conjures up images of churchy, holy, pious, New Age or some other airy fairy mystical perception. This was, and is not me, and if I could write this in shouty CAPS I would. I have led a fairly eventful life exploring most of what life has on offer, the good and the bad. God was just always part of my spirituality and I would modify God to suit my views, values and worldviews at the time. On this particular day I was about to literally dump God for good. God was not behaving as I wanted and acting as I believed God should. Why did God not seem to be answering my prayers? Why did God not feed the starving? Injustice. Wars. Greed. Power. Rape, Poverty, Disease. Why were some babies born just to die? Six million Jews and minority groups massacred in the holocaust. Couldn’t you have stopped this God? Why? Why? Why? So many questions. It was then I became aware of another option. What if everything I believed and perceived God to be was a lie? And it was. So I let God go. For a while I felt utterly bereft. Bewildered and panicky at what was happening. It felt as though I had wasted 50 years of my life chasing God, of being conned by my mind. Letting God go left a huge void. But at the same time completely liberating. I read somewhere that if we continue to journey trying to make things fit into our own worldview then no one will benefit. I had designed God so I could control God. Throughout history, God has suffered a great injustice at the hands of those who claim to be the closest to God. No one person or religion has a monopoly on the truth. What did I replace God with? Oh, I didn’t replace God, no, I just let God go to be God. I have no intention of replacing God with another God. God just is, that’s all. What remains though is room. Plenty of room for God to be God. What I have noticed is how my attitudes towards others have changed. The people I meet and their life experiences have become incredibly precious. Love, peace and tolerance take on new dimensions when you let God go to be God. Nothing is what it seems. Maybe what you believe right now is the truth and you have the answers. If that’s the case, then don’t be afraid of to ask yourself the question. What if everything I perceive, or don’t perceive, God to be is a lie? It may well be that you end up right back where you are now. But it’s a wonderful, exhilarating, never-ending question of what, and who God is, or is not, to explore. Read more from Margaret’s In Hindsight series here: <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/health/mind/2016/12/margaret-cunningham-on-fear/">Don’t let fear stop you from your goals</a> <a href="https://www.oversixty.co.nz/health/mind/2017/01/margaret-cunningham-on-time-to-do-nothing/%20">In praise of doing nothing</a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/lifestyle/relationships/2016/11/margaret-cunningham-on-what-makes-a-marriage-last/">What really makes a marriage last</a>

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