Nik Nak’s Daily Teaser — 20-8-2023 — Hungary.

20th August, 2023: Hungary.

Right … it’s a quiet Sunday morning.

And, frankly?

I’m looking at a quiet one.

Bar filming, of course!

Frankly?

I’m looking forward to the new week: I can possibly get a few things done.

~≈Ù≈~

Nik Nak’s Daily Teaser — 23-10-2021: Feeling Hungary.

23rd October, 2021.

Right … 

It’s officially the case that I got everything I needed to do, yesterday, done.

Bills?   Paid.

Interview?   Done: I even managed to ask relevant questions.   Including ones about stools.   The older I get, the more I appreciate being able to sit down on the job.

Pest controller?   Visited: bang on the dot of 8:30.   Seemingly, I’ve been visited by mice, at some point.   And I got some better — presumably more lethal — bait/poison.

I need to get a new key for my rat trap though.

And I need to shop!

~≈Ÿ≈~

Remember me telling you that the UK government had removed the twenty pound (£20) uplift to Universal Credit, the standard unemployment benefit in the UK … ?

That’s going to make life difficult for all of us: I could see that, yesterday, paying my bills.

Now … granted I’ve put in for the Warm Home Discount fuel companies make available to those of us on benefits.   But I have no guarantee of when that will turn up.

But think the Government should have kept the uplift.

One thing I have noticed?

Is that the French Government has announced they will be paying about 38 million French citizens €100, this winter.   That’s about eighty-four pounds (£84), roughly equivalent to the monthly uplift we got during the Pandemic.

Well played, President Macron.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak will be unveiling this year’s Autumn Budget, next Wednesday.

Will he do something similar?

I very much doubt it, somehow.

~≈Ÿ≈~

Bathory: blood, guts and poodle cuts.

Hmmm …

You know, I’ve got to confess, I think me, Movie Night Adrian, Kevin D, and his wife, Tootles Sarah, managed to do something rather unusual, last night.

We actually managed to catch something fairly art-house …

Well …

When I say art-house, I don’t know if the 2008, Juraj Jakubisko directed Anna Friel film, Bathory actually counts.

Certainly not with Friel’s rather 16th century poodle-cut.

But I’m thinking that it’s about as art-house as we’re likely to get …

Bathory loosely sees Anna Friel as the eponymous Countessa Erszabet Báthory, the legendary Countess of Blood from 16th Century Upper Hungary: in what’s now the Slovak Republic.

And attempts, as director, Juraj Jakubisko says in his Wikipedia entry, “She supposedly murdered 650 people during her lifetime. I think this theory is absurd and thought of creating my own legend, which would show her in a completely different light …”

I’m thinking he manages to mostly succeed, there. But he also adds that he added in a couple of investigating monks to try and lighten the mood of the piece.

Which I know for a fact didn’t sit especially well with Kevin and Adrian …

»»•««

Actually, I’ve to got admit, I’m none too sure if I was impressed, myself.

You see, I got hold of Báthory mostly on the back of the fact it had actress Anna Friel in it: someone I always thought was frankly cute, ever since I clapped eye on her in Brookside.

And … ?

And while I think she — and the film’s overall look — is riveting in this, I’m thinking that — at 2 hours, 14 minutes — Báthory isn’t necessarily the best way to spent an evening.

Not unless it gets a lot of editing work done to it.

And maybe some re-writing. Just to make it a little pacier …

»»•««

Báthory

Paul: Nice but forgettable ★½☆☆☆

Adrian: Nice but forgettable ★½☆☆☆

Kevin: Watchable ★★☆☆