The Iron Lady

Meryl Streep won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher.  I think she did a very good job, but her makeup artists where the real stars of this show-they also won an Oscar.  We shift from the past to the present and  the actors playing the principals all undergo some dramatic changes.  At one point I mistook another Minister for Margret’s husband, who has a co-starring role as a ghost/hallucination.   You’ve seen one old British guy with huge glasses and you’ve seen then all. Not being an expert on Margaret Thatcher, I had to google her to find…

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Beer Is Proof That God Loves Us

Here is the tale of one man’s love for his favorite beverage: Beer.  From it’s humble beginnings as everyone’s everyday drink, to it’s latest mutations into 32 per cent proof hard core booze, Charles Bamforth explains why beer is the best of all the alcohols. I’m not a drinking man, not even beer.  But I am a reader and Beer Is Proof That God Loves Us is a good read.  Charles tells a loving story of beer, often mentioning beers of the world that I have never heard of.  He tells how all beers are now owned by one or two…

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Made in Dagenham

Among the Coming Attractions on the DVD of The King’s Speech was the trailer for Made in Dagenham.  It looked like my kind of film, an underdog story, a cute British cast, and good old Bob Hoskins. I grew up in the 1970s with no father to speak of, a working mother,  and an older sister who was quite taken with the women’s liberation movement. It is a bit shocking to see that male chauvinism and outright sexual discrimination was still going strong in 1968.  For some reason I thought that whole Suffragette thing would have fixed this problem as…

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